


Different Eyes

by Mhalachai



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Firefly
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Future Fic, Other, Reavers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mhalachai/pseuds/Mhalachai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serenity gets four new passengers and, as usual, things are not as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set between the end of the Firefly series and Serenity. Originally published September, 2005.

It wasn't the men that Kaylee noticed first, even though they were both looked mighty fine under the bright yellow sun of the world. It wasn't the black box they carried between them, balanced carefully as they walked through the dusty port. It also wasn't the little boy a few steps ahead of them, occasionally looking back at the shorter of the men. Kaylee knew that look; she'd used to look at her Daddy like that when she was a little girl, when Daddy knew everything and always kept her safe.

No, it was the woman, holding tight to the little boy's hand, that first caught Kaylee's eye. She was looking carefully at every ship they passed. When her eyes landed on Serenity, she stopped walking. Kaylee felt nervous, like she should be defending Serenity to this woman. But the woman looked at the ship, at the hand-painted sign next to Kaylee's perch on the ramp, asking for passengers to Gunnerole, then finally at Kaylee herself.

Kaylee put on a big smile as she twirled her parasol. It was so bright and cheery, it made her feel shiny. After what happened with Early the month before, she needed to feel shiny.

The woman turned her head and spoke quietly with her two companions. The little boy stared up at Serenity with wide eyes, and Kaylee wondered if he liked ships as much as she did when she was little.

The group talked for so long that Kaylee found her mind wandering. Would the Captain be able to find those pieces Kaylee needed for Serenity's engine? They didn't have much money left from the last job, and the Captain had been swearing up a storm over the lack of work. But even Jayne didn't bother to point out anymore that if they just dropped Simon and River somewhere, they'd have an easier time with work. It was just something that they did these days, taking it all in stride. Simon and River were a part of the crew now, and that's the way it was.

Finally, the woman broke off from the conversation, and made her way toward Serenity, the two men just a step behind her. She let go of the little boy's hand, but he trotted along at her side easily, as if he was used to how fast his momma walked.

The woman stopped a few yards away from Kaylee, one hand on her hip, the other holding the strap on a large duffle bag. "Is this your ship?" she asked.

The woman talked strange, like with an accent, but not really. "Yeah, this is Serenity," Kaylee said, smiling again. "She don't look like much, but she's fast, and she's reliable. Get you where you want to go. Are you headed in our direction?"

"Gunnerole," the woman said shortly. "Are you going anywhere near Black Canyon?"

Kaylee nodded and set down her parasol. "We're aiming to land in Waterdown, which is sort of near Black Canyon," she said cheerfully. "Are you looking for passage?"

"Yes," the woman said firmly. It sounded to Kaylee like this was a woman who was used to getting her way. "For the four of us, and our cargo." She put her duffle on the ground. "How much are you asking for passage?"

Kaylee told her. The woman narrowed her eyes at the rather large figure. She opened her mouth to speak, but one of the men, the tall one, put his hand on her shoulder. "Anita," was all he said, but it made her stop and turn. He gave her a look.

Anita turned back to Kaylee, and they began to bargain. Kaylee had intentionally set the price very high, so she'd get a fare that wasn't going to make Jayne threaten to shoot her. Even after the woman made a final offer, with half price for the boy, Kaylee was jumping with glee on the inside. She'd be able to get another converter for Serenity with that money, she knew.

Then she remembered something that made her smile fade. "All I need to do now is run it past the Captain, and we're all set," she said.

The woman looked up at her sharply. "What are you talking about?" she demanded, brown eyes flashing dangerously.

"Just that the Captain has the final say-so, it's his ship," Kaylee stammered. This Anita person was really starting to remind her of Zoe, and in that special scary way.

The man at Anita's side touched her arm again. "Then we wait," he said calmly. "Anita, maybe we should get our stuff out of the sun."

Anita let out a sharp breath, almost in a hiss, then turned and stalked back over to the box. She and the other man picked up the box and walked it toward Serenity's lowered ramp.

The tall man gave Kaylee an almost apologetic smile, and her insides started to melt. Oh, he was so handsome, sort of like the Captain, all big and strong like.

A scraping sound made Kaylee realize she'd been staring, and she quickly looked down to see the little boy trying to drag his momma's duffle bag toward the ship. He wasn't having a lot of luck.

"Want a hand with that, sport?" the tall man asked.

"No, I got it," the boy said. He tugged so hard on one of the handles that he lost his footing and ended up on his butt in the dirt.

Anita started toward the boy, but the tall man got there first. The man swung the boy back onto his feet. "How about I give you a hand with that?"

The boy look up, squinting in the sun. "Okay, Richard," he said.

Richard picked up the boy, dropped him on top of the duffle bag, then picked up the bag and swung it towards the ramp, the boy laughing with delight the whole time. It made Kaylee happy, that the boy seemed so happy. Out here on the border worlds, kids didn't often get to be so happy. Life was usually hard and brutal and short.

Going back to her place on the ramp, Kaylee picked up her parasol. After Richard put down the duffle bag by the box, he went and joined Anita, who was standing in the shade of one of Serenity's thrusters. They spoke in low voices, and Kaylee tried hard not to listen in.

The boy rolled off the duffle bag and arranged the cloth handles just so, then pulled off his jacket and put it over the bag. The shorter man looked on, amused at the kid's antics.

Then the boy marched over to Kaylee and planted his little feet firmly on the metal ramp. "How does it fly?" he asked.

"Serenity?" Kaylee asked, twirling her parasol idly. The boy nodded as the shorter man knelt by his side. Kaylee hadn't ever tried to talk about the workings of Serenity to anyone as young as this kid before, and she didn't know how much he'd know. "It's got an engine in back, and that powers the thrusters," Kaylee explained, pointing at where the boy's momma was standing.

"Oh." The boy frowned slightly as he thought about it. Up close like this, he really did look like his momma, Kaylee thought, with her black hair and pale skin. But his eyes were a brilliant purple, just like the man next to him.

The man caught Kaylee staring at him, and she smiled shyly. He smiled back, and Kaylee felt her heart go pitter-patter. It wasn't fair, to meet two such handsome men in one day.

"Ashley," the man called. Obediently, the boy turned around. "You should introduce yourself to this nice lady."

The boy nodded and held out his hand to Kaylee. "I'm Ashley," he said loudly. "Who are you?"

Kaylee took the offered hand and shook it. It was so tiny and soft, she was almost afraid she'd squeeze too hard. "I'm Kaylee," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Ashley beamed at her, then whirled around and ran down the ramp toward his momma. When the boy got near enough, Richard easily swung the boy up onto his shoulders.

"I'm Nathaniel," the man in front of Kaylee said pleasantly.

"Nice to meet you," Kaylee said. "That your boy?"

Nathaniel nodded proudly, tucking a stray piece of his shoulder-length hair behind his ear. "Yes, mine and Anita's."

Another prying question was on the tip of Kaylee's tongue, but she managed to squash it back. The boy looked equally at home with Richard as with Nathaniel, even if Richard didn't look like he was kin to either Nathaniel or Anita.

Nathaniel smiled again and stood up. "Do you think your captain will have a problem taking us on board?"

"He probably won't," she said, mentally crossing her fingers. They really did need the money, and how else would Kaylee ever figure these people out? "Do you have people waiting for you at Black Canyon?"

"Yes, but they'll wait for us," Nathaniel said. He looked out at the dusty port. "It would just be nice to get off this rock. Time to head for home."

~~*~~

Jayne swore fiercely as the mule drove over yet another bump in the dirt road. Mal kept his mouth shut. He knew better than to criticize Zoe's driving. And the roads on this pile of rock really were damned horrible.

Instead, Mal thought about another job, done and over. The cash was burning a hole in his pocket, and he couldn't wait to get Serenity out of the world.

He'd radioed Wash just as they started the drive back to the port, to tell him to get Serenity ready to fly. The feed had been a bit garbled, but it sounded like Wash said something about passengers. Just what Mal didn't need.

At least the cargo was gone, so there was nothing illegal on board. Except for those two Alliance fugitives. No problem there. Right.

"Problem, sir?" Zoe asked.

"Not yet," Mal said. "Seems as if Kaylee found us some passengers off this rock."

Jayne snorted. "Like that worked out so great last time."

Mal turned his head, just a little bit, but Jayne shut his trap quickly.

The mule rounded the bend of the dirt road, and there was Serenity right in front of them. Kaylee's bright parasol was like a beacon, guiding them home.

Zoe began to slow the mule, coming to a stop in front of the ramp. Mal jumped off, then Zoe drove the mule into the hold.

Mal was already sizing up these potential passengers as he walked toward Kaylee. Three of them, two men and one woman. The woman was tiny, next to the tall man, but Mal knew people, and he saw right away what this woman was. A warrior. Deadly.

He really didn't like this.

"Captain, these here are some people who want passage to Gunnerole," Kaylee said. "This here's Anita, and Richard, and Nathaniel's over there with--"

"What's your purpose in going to Gunnerole?" Mal asked, interrupting Kaylee.

Anita crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not sure that's any of your business," she said. "We just want a flight, and we're willing to pay that ridiculous fee your crewmember asked for."

How much had Kaylee wheedled out of these folk? "I'm sure you understand, me making sure it's all clear for my crew and all." Mal glanced back at the ramp. All the luggage these people seemed to have was a smallish box, a large duffle bag and a couple of knapsacks. "What's in the box?"

"Books," the man next to Anita rumbled.

Mal's eyebrows went up. He wasn't getting a bad feeling off these folks. If he could just keep River out of their way, things would probably--

"Sir." Zoe stood at the top of the ramp. Her hands were empty, which meant she didn't see any threat, but she was looking down at the man on the ramp. As Mal looked at the man, someone peeked out from behind the man's shoulders.

Mal's first thought was, why do they have a midget? Then his brain kicked into gear. "We don't do kids," he said.

Anita glared at him. "I'm very glad to hear that," she said sarcastically. "But you're taking us to Gunnerole. All of us."

"And why is that?" Mal demanded.

"Because we're paying you good honest money," she said. "Ashley won't get in anyone's way."

Mal glanced up at Zoe. Her face was blank, but he could read her eyes. She was fine with these people being on board.

"Fine," Mal said as he walked up the ramp. Behind him, he heard Anita muttering something, but he was too far away to hear. "Zoe, tell Wash to get us in the air."

Zoe gave him a look, but went to the intercom without a word.

Kaylee stepped just inside the doors and pointed at a spot on the floor. Richard and Anita carried their box over to the spot by the wall, and Nathaniel trailed after them, carrying the duffle bag in one hand. The boy walked right behind Nathaniel. When he saw Mal looking at him, he ducked behind Nathaniel.

Mal gestured Kaylee over. She came reluctantly, a slightly disapproving look on her face. "What?"

"You didn't need to scare the kid like that," Kaylee said.

"I didn't scare him, I--" Mal stopped trying when he saw Kaylee's face. "How much are they paying?" Kaylee named a sum that made Mal let out a whistle. "For the lot of them?"

Kaylee nodded.

"Huh." The ramp started to lift, cutting off the sunshine. "Go make sure Serenity's ready to go, will you?"

"You're welcome, Captain," Kaylee said, sounding slightly annoyed as she walked off.

"What I do?" Mal asked as Zoe joined him. She had that look on her face, the one that clearly said she thought he was being an ass, but wasn't going to say it out loud.

"Wash says we're ready to go," Zoe said.

"Good. Everyone's on board?"

Zoe nodded. "Want me to take our guests to the passenger dorm?"

"Yeah, you do that. I'll be there in a few minutes." All he wanted to do was put the money away, and make sure there were no problems with his ship.

He'd deal with the passengers in a bit. One crisis at a time.

~~*~~

"... and this is the kitchen," Zoe finished as they walked through the back hallway. The group gathered around the table looked up curiously as the new passengers.

"It's a nice ship you got here," Richard said, taking in the kitchen. Anita didn't say anything. She hadn't said anything since Zoe started the tour of the ship, which Zoe found odd. It didn't tally with her first impression of the woman, when she'd been facing down the Captain like that outside.

At the table, Shepherd Book stood up. "Are these our new guests?" he asked.

"Sure thing, Shepherd. They'll be going with us to Gunnerole," Zoe said, stepping aside a bit to be able to watch the newcomers. Most people usually took poorly to the knowledge that there was a preacher on board.

These people didn't react at all. Richard took a step forward, hand out. "I'm Richard. Good to meet you."

"Likewise," Book said. He turned to the others.

"I'm Nathaniel, and this is Ashley," the other man said.

Book nodded and looked at Anita, but then the little boy piped up. "Where are your sheep?"

Looking slightly confused, Book said, "My what?"

"Your sheep," Ashley repeated. "You need sheep to be a shepherd."

Nathaniel picked the boy up. "Remember we talked about Shepherds?" he said. "They're like preachers back home."

"Oh." Ashley put his finger in his mouth and stared at Book.

Simon slid out of his chair and joined Book. "Hi," he said with a little awkward wave. "I'm Simon, the doctor."

Nathaniel gave him a nod and a smile.

Throughout it all, Zoe had been keeping an eye on Anita. She seemed preoccupied now, hardly paying attention to the introductions.

Now Inara approached the group, wearing the shiny red dress that made her almost glow. "Welcome on board Serenity," the Companion said.

The words seemed to startle Anita back from wherever she'd gone. "Sorry, what?"

"I wanted to welcome you on board," Inara said, glancing toward the far door as the Captain stomped down the hall from the bridge. He stopped on the far side of the table and put his hands on the back of an abandoned chair.

"Now that we're all here, may as well go over the rules," he said shortly. Inara pursed her lips in that move she did when she wanted to roll her eyes, and Simon coughed to cover a smile. "I'll have to ask you to stay in the passenger area while we're flying, not poking around the engine or the bridge or whatnot. You'll also need to keep that boy in line until we land."

Anita faced the Captain. "My son won't be getting in anyone's way," she snapped.

"Good."

"Now I have a few questions for you," Anita continued. Zoe saw Richard's shoulders stiffen, just a little. "Is this everyone who's on board? The ones we've met, as well as this mysterious pilot?"

Zoe hadn't seen River since they returned to the ship, but that wasn't anything new. The girl often hid herself in the tiniest corners for no apparent reason.

"No," the Captain said after a moment's hesitation.

Taking his cue from the Captain, Simon said, "There's also my sister. She's... around."

Anita and the Captain just looked at each other for a long moment, then he glanced away. "We're in for the long haul, folks. Make yourselves comfortable." With that, he headed back toward the bridge.

All Zoe wanted to do was follow him to see Wash, but her husband could wait. She wasn't ready to let these folks loose on the ship quite yet.

Book and Inara started to clean up the card game off the table. Anita took the boy out of Nathaniel's arms and walked with him to the couch at the far end of the room. She sat down and lifted her son onto her lap so he was facing her.

"Are we going to talk about the rules?" the boy asked, long suffering impatience in his voice.

"Yes, we are." Anita smoothed his hair back from his face. "I know you don't like having to behave like this all the time..." She smiled as the boy nodded. "But we're almost home. Now here's what I need you to do." The boy sat up straight. "I need you to be on your best behaviour. No sneaking off. No bothering anyone. If you want to go anywhere, you ask me or Daddy or Richard."

"But Mommy..."

"Ashley, I'm serious." Anita's voice was firm. "This is very important."

"How important?" the boy asked.

Anita looked over at Richard, then back to her son. "Do you remember how important it was for you to behave at the Castle?"

It was as if someone sent an electric charge through the room. Both Richard and Nathaniel reacted to the words. It was barely perceptible, but it was there.

Ashley nodded, strange purple eyes wide. "I remember," he said solemnly.

Anita tried to smile. "I know you do." She kissed him on the forehead and lifted him to the ground. "Why don't you go with Daddy to get your book from the bunk?"

The boy scurried across the floor to Nathaniel, who took his hand on the way down the steps. When they were gone, Richard walked over to Anita. "Was that necessary?" he asked, hands on his hips.

Anita leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. "Yes."

The other people in the room were moving very quietly, not wanting to interrupt the brewing argument. Or, more likely, not wanting to miss a word, Zoe thought.

"Anita--"

Anita's eyes snapped open and she stood up in a fluid motion. "I'm going to go check on the books," she said, sarcasm heavy in her voice as she pushed past Richard. Second later, the sound of her boots sounded against the metal steps.

Richard stared after her, then gave Zoe an apologetic smile. "She's just... under a lot of stress."

"She's not always like this?" Zoe said. She wondered if he'd take offence at her words, but Zoe didn't not say things because it might lead to a fight.

With a shrug, Richard said, "No, she's always like this." He pushed his short hair back from his face. "Is there anything I can do to help out?"

Book finished removing the cards from the table and said, "It's my turn to make supper. If you're handy with a knife, I wouldn't mind hearing a new story."

"Sure."

Zoe stayed by the door and watched their tall guest walk across the room. He moved like he was used to wide open spaces, and was having to pull back his steps in the tiny kitchen area.

Inara paused at Zoe's side on her way to her shuttle. "What is it?" she murmured.

"Something's off," Zoe said quietly. "Part of their story's missing."

"Isn't it always?" Inara said with a smile, and continued on her way.

Zoe went back to watching. She'd have to ask Kaylee, but there was a big chunk of information missing on their new guests. Whatever their cargo was, what Anita had gone to check out, probably wasn't books. But what else could fit in a box that small?


	2. Chapter 2

Simon came down the steps to his infirmary slowly, thinking about the little altercation between the new passengers, Anita and Richard. It had seemed like a little lover's spat, but on her way to the engine room, Kaylee told them that the little boy belonged to Anita and the other man. So who was who?

He shook his head. Just a few years ago, back at the hospital, he'd have been above gossip like this. Now he had to look for anything to alleviate the boredom of these long hauls in the cold of space.

Nathaniel and Ashley came around the corner from the passenger bunks, the boy clutching a book to his chest. Simon stopped in the infirmary door. "Are you finding everything all right?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you," Nathaniel said. "It's not a big place to get lost in."

"Not at all," Simon agreed. "Will any of you be needing a doctor's services on the trip?"

It wasn't the most tactful thing he could have said, but his bedside manner had been dulled by the demands of this life on the run.

Nathaniel shook his head. "We're fine. Ashley was having a bit of trouble sleeping last week, but that was probably just being in an unfamiliar place."

"Let me know if you need anything," Simon said. He was about to go into the infirmary when he heard a tiny voice.

"Are you playing a game?" Ashley said, speaking to a hidden area under the stairs.

River, Simon thought. Hiding again.

"It's not a game," River's disembodied voice replied. "It's real. I'm not here."

Ashley laid his book on the floor and crouched down. "What are you hiding from?"

"Dinosaurs."

Ashley frowned, his lower lip sticking out in a pout. "There aren't dinosaurs anymore."

River was quiet for a moment. "They're invisible."

Simon's heart sank. Why did she have to act so crazy like this? The last thing they needed was these new passengers paying close attention to his sister.

Ashley looked around at his father. "Daddy, there are invisible dinosaurs!" he said urgently.

Nathaniel crossed the floor and knelt by the boy. Simon made himself stay where he was. He wouldn't overreact, make a bad situation worse.

"If they're invisible, how are we going to know they're coming?" Nathaniel was saying.

"They smell!" Ashley piped up, clearly getting into River's 'game'. "Like snakes!"

River edged away from her spot under the stairs so she could see the newcomers more easily. "They removed you from the incubator too soon. You're unfinished."

"He's not unfinished, River," Simon said, "he's just young."

"I'm Ashley," the boy said.

"No." River reached a hand out and touched a lock of the boy's black hair. "It's wrong."

"What is?" Nathaniel asked in a voice too calm for a strange girl to be touching his son and spouting nonsense.

River cocked her head to the side, as if she heard words that no one else did. "Hair of gold, heart ice-cold," she said in a distracted voice. She looked at Nathaniel, her expression far away. "You cut your hair. It made her sad."

Simon cast around desperately for an answer to the inevitable question about River's behaviour. But the question never came.

"Yes, it did." Nathaniel gently took River's hand and moved it away from Ashley. "But it needed to be done."

River stared at him for a long minute, then crawled out from under the stairs, like a cat, and arched her back.

Nathaniel handed Ashley the book and lifted up his son. He nodded to Simon, then walked away, keeping a cautious eye on River the entire time.

When father and son had turned the corner at the top of the stairs, Simon crouched by River. "What were you talking about?" he asked, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

River's gaze was suddenly icy in its clarity. "You wouldn't understand," she said in a condescending voice Simon had been hearing almost since she learned to talk.

"Yes, but you need to be careful," Simon said. "We don't know anything about these people."

"They're safe, Simon. They're Council."

Simon blinked. "What council?"

River rolled her eyes and stood up gracefully. "The Council of vampires." She shook her head as she went up on tiptoe and padded like a cat toward her bunk.

Simon stayed, staring at where River had been. For a moment there, he'd thought River had been making some progress, but then she devolved into ghost stories. He sighed wearily. At least she didn't start on it in front of the guests.

~~*~~

Jayne pushed the door to his bunk shut with a clang. He could smell food, and it didn't smell half bad. Preacher must be cooking, he thought as he headed down the hall.

He met Mal coming down from the bridge. "You want to go check out the hold before we eat?" Mal said, not stopping to get an answer.

Jayne made a face at Mal's retreating back. "Goram captain, thinks he's the boss of everyone," Jayne said to himself as he turned on his heel and trudged down the stairs to the hold.

He stopped on the catwalk. That woman was down there, poking away at that box she'd brought on board. Jayne leaned back against a post to watch her.

She looked mighty fine, Jayne decided. Not all soft and delicate like Inara, but like a solid woman who'd enjoy a good time. It didn't hurt that she had such a tight ass, either.

Tightening one final strap, she looked up at him. A man could fall into those dark eyes. "Can I help you with something?" she asked.

Jayne crossed his arms over his chest. "It's almost dinner," he said. There, he'd been right helpful.

"Right." She bent back over the box.

"So what do you got in there that's so special?" Jayne asked.

"Books."

Jayne turned this one over in his head. It might be books, but he'd seen the way these passengers treated that box. There was some special cargo in that box, something precious. People didn't treat books like that.

While he decided not to say anything, the woman straightened up and slipped her jacket back on. The jacket fit tight under her breasts as she buttoned it up, and Jayne didn't see any reason to look away. She was a damned fine woman. Made him wonder which of the men in the kitchen she was doing.

She finished with her jacket and headed toward the stairs. When she reached the same level as Jayne, she slowed, gave him the once-over, but did not stop. Once she passed him, Jayne smirked and followed her, hanging far enough behind so he could watch her walk.

The kitchen was busier than normal as everyone was putting things on the table. Their way was hampered by a waist-high obstacle that was attempting to carry a plate of bread to the table.

Jayne didn't have anything against kids, just didn't see much use for them out in space. Didn't matter, as long as his mother kept him out from underfoot. Taking his normal chair, Jayne grabbed the pitcher and poured himself some water.

"Sorry about the chairs," the preacher said. "We only seemed to be able to round up enough for the adults."

"Shouldn't have thirteen for supper," River said from the other end of the table. She turned her chair around so the back faced the table, and knelt on the seat. "The intel's wrong."

"Mommy, I put the bread on the plate," the little boy said seriously as everyone sat down.

"Did you? It looks very nice," the woman said, lifting her son onto her lap before pulling her chair close to the table. Her men sat on either side of her, Jayne noted, the younger one keeping a very close eye on her.

Mal reached for a plate of food and it signalled everyone to begin passing around the dishes. The only empty chair at the table was beside Zoe. Wash wasn't there yet. He usually came late to meals.

Jayne handed the bread to Inara, and started eating.

~~*~~

Quiet.

As much as Book liked Serenity and its crew in the day when there was always activity, some of it legitimate, he liked the quiet of night more. Most of the crew were sleeping, and Book was left alone with the hum of the engines and the pressing stillness of space.

He finished his nightly readings and closed his bible. Even with four new passengers on the ship, it was almost as peaceful as it had been in the Abbey.

The kitchen was in order by the time Book headed for the stairs to his room. The plates were neatly stacked, chairs in place, ready for the next morning. Book believed that the world had an order, a way to be, and it was as much meditation as prayer to see things in their ordered place.

The new passengers... Book didn't yet know their place in the order of things. They were hiding something, that much Book knew. What could it be?

The boy was the logical place to look. Children always reflected the anxieties of their parents, but Ashley seemed happy, well-fed, healthy, and equally at home with both of the men.

Maybe that was it, Book thought as he walked slowly down the stairs. Something about the way the men interacted with the woman. It wasn't jealousy, not possession, just... familiarity.

As his foot touched the bottom step, he became aware that something was not as it should be. Automatically, he glanced into the vacant infirmary before sweeping his eyes around the open space.

Anita was curled up on a corner of the sofa, Ashley sleeping on her lap. She looked up at Book with eyes that were too wide, too empty. Then the haunted look was gone, but the expression was seared into Book's mind.

"Couldn't sleep?" Book said gently, so as not to wake the sleeping boy.

Anita drew an edge of the blanket tighter around her son's arm. "It's the noise," she replied, voice low.

Book nodded and perched on the edge of the step, far enough away so he wouldn't startle her. Her hair was pulled over her shoulder, and her shirt was tugged askew. At first, Book thought it was the light, but it appeared as if there was a fresh imprint of someone's teeth on her neck.

Unease growing, Book placed his bible on the step. "It's the engine. You get used to it after about a week."

"Great," Anita mumbled. She passed her hand over Ashley's hair. "At least he can sleep through it."

Book could now see the exhaustion on her face, the deep tiredness that had nothing to do with sleep. His gaze drifted back down to the bite mark, which hadn't been on her neck during dinner.

While he was thinking on how to approach this, with her men sleeping not ten feet away, Anita blinked hard and pushed her hair back from her face with her free hand. "Do you ever think about what you want?" she asked.

Book frowned slightly. "About what we want, or about what we are supposed to want?"

"What we want." Anita looked at Book. "I'm not sure if I'm better off, or worse."

"How do you mean?" The air seemed tight, and Book wasn't sure why.

Anita looked away, and Book found that he could breathe again. "I know exactly what I want, and I know exactly what I need to do in order to get it."

The hum of the engines filled the following silence, while Anita held her son and Book searched for the right words. "They can help you," he finally said.

Anita frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"The captain, this crew," Book said. "If you and your son need protection, they can help you."

He wasn't expecting her to be so startled. "What are you talking--" Her voice broke off suddenly and she lifted her hand to her neck. "This isn't that."

"It's not?"

"No." Anita shifted around, lifting her son around in her lap. "Richard and Nathaniel, they'd never do anything to hurt me."

Then why is your neck bleeding? Book wanted to ask, but held his tongue. If she didn't want to hear it, there was nothing he could do. All he could do in this situation was to try again later, give her some time to think about his offer.

Anita ran her fingers through Ashley's hair, holding her son as if he was the only thing between her and the night, but also as if her embrace was all that protected him. Later on, when he thought about the conversation, Book was never sure why he asked what he did. "Is he your first child?"

Anita froze, a stillness so complete it was as if Book could look away and she would vanish. "No, he's not," Anita said quietly. Her eyes were fixed on Book, a calculating, ancient look there that belied her fragile appearance. "He's my second. Erin was my first."

Ashley moved in his sleep, bringing his hand up and putting his thumb in his mouth. It distracted Anita, caused her to look at her son.

"And I didn't have her for long, considering," Anita continued, talking almost to herself, "But I'm not sorry. Never sorry I got to know her, and never sorry she was mine."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Book said, feeling as he always did, that such words to a bereaved mother were more than useless. How old could Anita have been when her other child had died? In the dark of night like this, she didn't look any older than Kaylee.

Anita shook her head. "The only thing I'm sorry about is that Erin never got to meet Ashley here. I think she would have liked a little brother."

Although her voice was soft, her words almost masked the sound of footfalls in the hallway. Richard appeared around the corner. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. "Everything okay?" he asked.

Anita nodded, but made no attempt to move.

"Ashley'd get a better sleep if he was lying down," Richard said, his voice neutral.

Book looked the bible on the step next to him. He wasn't sure what the other man might see in his eyes right then, and wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

Anita sighed. "Maybe you're right." She tried to stand, her son in her arms, but Richard came over and picked up the sleeping child effortlessly.

"I've got him," Richard said.

Pushing herself to her feet, Anita looked at Book for a long moment. "Thank you," she said finally.

"For what?"

"For listening," Anita said with a sad smile, then followed Richard around the corner to their bunk.

Book stayed where he was. He understood how people acted, reacted, but he had never seen anyone like these passengers. A woman with a bite on her neck, one healthy child and tales of a dead one, two men acting as if the woman was both theirs...

Somehow, in the dark of space, none of it made any sense.

~~*~~

"So they all slept in the same room?" Kaylee murmured to Simon as they cleaned up the dishes from breakfast.

Simon glanced around, making sure that the passengers in question weren't within earshot. "Yes," he said.

Kaylee's eyes were wide as she absently dried a plate. "Them beds ain't very big."

Simon gave her a warning glance. "Kaylee..."

"I'm just saying," she said, putting her hands up. It was so amazingly cute, her standing there in her little shirt, coveralls belted around her waist.

Simon turned his attention back to the dishes. It had been over a month since Jubal Early boarded Serenity to take River away. Since he had tied Kaylee up on the cold floor of the engine room and threatened to rape her. Simon had never felt such rage as when Early had told him that. The bastard was trying to steal River, but it hadn't been until he threatened Kaylee that Simon almost lost it.

Simon's life had always been very orderly. Become a doctor, be the best. To be the best, he'd had to be unemotional. Not that he didn't feel. Simon felt everything, but it had always been from behind a protective haze. Life was safe, orderly, expected.

Until he got that letter from River.

Since then, Simon had been possessed of one goal. Find his sister, get her out, make her safe. He'd done most of that, but they had fallen into a world so unfamiliar that he'd fallen back on what he knew: Be cool, aloof, don't let anyone know what you're thinking. He did it with dying patients on Osiris, until it was easier to do than be himself.

It hadn't been River who made him change. Even crazy and broken, she was still part of that old life, the cold life. Kaylee was the one who made him change. She was too brash, too honest, too... raw. It wasn't the imagery Simon wanted, but it was true. Kaylee lived life on the edge of space, on the edge of everything, and she was happy.

It made Simon want to be happy too. Happy with Kaylee, her smile and her laugh and her unfailing friendship and her willingness to listen to him as he stumbled along.

"Anyway," Kaylee went on, picking up another dish, "So long as everybody's happy, what does it matter?"

"Nothing," Simon said thoughtfully. "Doesn't matter at all."

As he spoke, the child marched back to the table and sat beside his father. "Do I hafta?" Ashley whined.

Nathaniel pulled his son's chair closer to the table. "Yes, you do."

"Why?"

"Because everyone needs to learn how to read," Nathaniel said reasonably. He put a piece of paper in front of Ashley and laid down some pens.

"I don't," Ashley said rebelliously.

"You don't?" Nathaniel pretended to consider this. "Then how will you read new stories when you're all grown up?"

Ashley squirmed. "Mommy will read them to me."

"What if Mommy's busy?"

Ashley made a face. "Then you."

Nathaniel sighed theatrically. "Be that as it may, you're still learning to read."

Ashley slumped back in his chair, face screwed up into a scowl, arms crossed petulantly over his chest. Simon had to put his hand over his mouth to hide his sudden grin.

Kaylee turned around so she was facing away from the kid, shaking with hidden laughter. "Were you ever like that?" she murmured.

Simon shook his head. "I was a very proper young man, taking my lessons seriously."

Kaylee wouldn't stop grinning. "I'll just bet you were."

At the table, Nathaniel had apparently given up on his son and was writing on the paper. Ashley got up on his knees and tried to see the paper. "What are you writing?" he asked his father, all traces of annoyance gone.

Nathaniel looked at the boy out of the corner of his eye. "Ashley smells," he said.

"I do not!" Ashley exclaimed, climbing onto his father's lap. He peered at the paper. "Write 'Daddy smells'," he demanded.

By this time, Kaylee was laughing so hard that she had to put her hand on Simon's back to steady herself.

Anita came up the stairs and walked past the table. She stopped by the cooking area, watching her son and his father argue.

Suddenly, all Simon could think about was Kaylee, her hand so warm on his back, the curve of her lips as she smiled, the dancing laughter in her eyes. Simon remembered how it felt to wake up with her on top of him on Higgin's Moon, warm and so very right...

Simon had to take a step away from Kaylee, trying to get himself under control.

Richard materialized at Anita's side from somewhere, Simon didn't quite care where. "Anita," was all he said, but then he took her arm and they headed toward the steps to the passenger dorm, and Simon found that he could think again.

Without meaning to, he looked at Kaylee. She had stopped laughing, her eyes wide, as if she wasn't sure what had just happened. She wasn't the only one.

"I, uh..." Simon stuttered.

Kaylee took a step back, looking as spooked as he did. "No, I'll get the rest of the dishes," she said in a rush.

"Right." Simon fled the room, stopping only when he got to his infirmary. He didn't want to think about it, not the sudden rush of inappropriate thoughts he'd just had over Kaylee. She deserved better than him thinking things like that about her, really she did.

He was just about to open up the supply draw to start organizing something when he heard voices drifting through the ventilation vent in the ceiling, the one that ran over the passenger dorms. "... wish you'd let me help you," came Richard's soft voice.

"I told you, you can't help," Anita replied, sounding exhausted. "I'll deal with this when we get home, when everybody's safe."

There was a pause, then Richard said, "Ashley seems to be doing okay."

"No thanks to me," Anita snapped back.

"What are you talking about?"

"This is all my f--" Anita broke off. Simon held his breath, knowing that he shouldn't be listening to this, but not able to walk away. "Not now, okay? Just help me with the ardeur."

Simon didn't recognize the word, not in the context she used it. He stayed motionless, wondering what would happen next. Little footsteps came down the stairs, past the infirmary window, just as Simon heard a sharp gasp through the vent, and not the kind one made when in pain.

Simon watched, confused and a bit embarassed, as Ashley walked across the common area toward the bunk he and his family were sharing, the one across from Shepherd Book. The kid was going to walk in on his mother with a man that wasn't his father, but what could Simon do?

Shaking his head, Simon was halfway out of the infirmary when Ashley stopped by the closed door and knocked loudly.

Simon stopped where he was as the door slid open to reveal Anita pulling her shirt back into place. "What is it?" she asked her son calmly.

"Daddy sent me to get my book," Ashley said.

Richard appeared behind Anita, his shirt already gone. He held the thin volume out to the child. "Here you go, kid."

Ashley took the book, not seeming at all worried about the adults' state of disarray. "Thank you."

Anita knelt down until she was at eye level with the boy. "Have I told you how proud I am of you lately?" she asked. Ashley shook his head. "I am. You've been acting so grown up all this time. I'm very proud of you," she said as she touched the boy's cheek.

The boy darted in and kissed his mother on the cheek, then ran back up the stairs. Anita watched him until he was gone, then her eyes fell on Simon, still standing in the middle of the common area. There was nothing overtly unfriendly in her gaze, but Simon was acutely aware of what he had just witnessed, and turned to leave. From behind her, he heard Anita slide the door shut.

Maybe he'd find out what Mal or Wash or someone not Kaylee was doing, somewhere away from these strange passengers

~~*~~

Touch.

River had been touched by many hands. Parents' hands, brother's hands, teachers' hands. Then the blue hands, pain hands, but that wasn't real touch, because they wanted to hurt, and so she made it be a dream, a nightmare she couldn't quite remember and could never forget.

She leaned against the cool walls of Serenity, in the hall between the engine room and the kitchen, directly through metal over the bed of these touching people, and let their thoughts come up to her like smoke through the air.

There was so much pain, but it was inside, like her pain, broken and battered in her head, not in her fingers or toes. _She_ thought that _he_ hated her, for not being strong. _He_ thought she cringed from his touch because of what he couldn't have stopped, at the Castle. _She_ was afraid that she wasn't going to be able to let him in, to do what needed to be done.

All painful thoughts, alone thoughts, as clothes fell away and skin touched, wet mouths and calloused hands on back and waist, touching like tracing an old path, dancing a dance they had performed a million times, until they would dance away to the heavens after their deaths to continue forever.

Then the barrier fell away, as flesh became one, thoughts became one, minds no longer alone, fears shared, so close it frightened River. They didn't cringe away from mixing thoughts (so like the needles in my head, thoughts not mine, not mind), it comforted and burned with their touches. Salty tears on the tongue, crying fears away with the touch.

River pushed herself away from the wall, the thoughts vanishing like smoke on the air. Her body felt too cold, too alone, but that wasn't her touch, wasn't her comfort. She couldn't take it as hers. She wasn't a thief.

Pulling herself to her feet, River ran on bare feet down the hall, through the kitchen past startled faces, down the stairs into the cargo bay. It was quieter here. She could move here, like a cat, not a wolf, no thinking about the way a wolf moved, in the darkness and in the flesh. Not her thoughts. She wasn't a thief.

River ran all the way down to the end of the cargo bay, almost touching the black box with its hidden silver symbols. The air tasted like tears, like blackberries after a thunderstorm. River felt like she was in a thunderstorm, buffeted about by winds she didn't understand. Was she a girl? Was she a thought? Was she a touch in the night?

Movement, a sudden scent of perfume. River stilled, hand in the air, reaching for something she didn't understand, and looked up.

Inara stood by the entrance to her shuttle, staring down at River.

Inara knew touch. Did it mean anything to her? Was Inara herself because of touch, or in spite of it?

Her energy gone, River dragged herself back up the stairs to the kitchen. One foot in front of the other, then again. People had been walking forever, but sometimes it felt like River was the first.

The little boy, half the man, half the woman, looked up as she stepped onto the metal floor. Did he know? River wondered. What his mother thought about when she cried?

"Why do you let him taste your woman?" River asked the purple man. Purple eyes, eyes were the key to the soul, a person is only his soul.

Someone gasped, probably Kaylee, River thought as she stared.

Nathaniel sat back in his chair. "She belongs to him as much as me," Nathaniel said evenly.

He was purple, and purple knew these things. "There is supposed to be a pair, a half and half to make a whole." River pointed at Ashley. "The whole is made, the halves must remain."

Nathaniel blinked slowly. "There are things stronger than a pair," he said.

River saw it in his head. Purple, green and black. Three together. A circle, strong, because of the woman in the middle. But not one trio. Two.

River's thoughts tasted like blackberries again. She shook her head hard, her hair flying in front of her face. "How can it be that way?"

"No one knows," Nathaniel said quietly. He glanced over as Inara came into the room, then back at River. "Would you like to join us?"

"We're reading," Ashley added. He held the book out to River. "Can you read?"

"Yes." River drifted around a curious Inara to the table, and sat down, proper as a lady should. "What are you reading?"

"About Narnia," Ashley explained. "It's a magic world. The animals talk."

All animals talk if you listen to them hard enough, River thought, but she listened carefully as Nathaniel began to read to his son. His words rose like mist in the air, calmer than smoke, and less dangerous in the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Kaylee's attention was drawn up from the layout of mechanical specs in front of her by a young voice. "What kind of music did they dance to at the ball?" Ashley demanded when his daddy finished the story.

Nathaniel put the book down. "What ball?"

"When they got made kings and queens," Ashley said. He got up on his knees in the chair and turned to River, still sitting across the table. "Do you think they had music to dance to?"

"Yes," River said dreamily, her eyes half-closed as they had been throughout the story. "The angels always have music."

She was probably right, Kaylee thought. Even when things were really bad back home, no work and no money, someone had always been singing. It never got too bad for her momma to sing her to sleep.

"What's this about music?" Anita's voice came up the stairs. A second later, she and Richard appeared.

Kaylee looked back down at her specs. No matter what she'd said to Simon earlier, it was a whole lot of weird that Anita had these two men with her. They'd all slept in the same bed. Did they all have sex at one time?

"What kind of music did they dance to in Narnia?" Ashley asked, jumping off his chair and running to his momma. She swung him up into her arms.

"You don't need music to dance," Anita said.

"Do too!"

"Do not!" Anita teased. "I'll show you." She shifted Ashley around on her hip until she could hold him with one arm, and held out her free hand. "Might I have this dance?"

Ashley giggled as his momma swung them around the kitchen area in a formal dance, like Kaylee had seen at that fancy party on Persephone. As mother and son danced, Kaylee realized it was the first time that she'd seen Anita smile. It made her look a whole lot younger.

River stared longingly at the dancing pair, her eyes following every movement of Anita's feet. Richard slowly came over to her side. "Would you like to dance?" he asked River.

The girl looked up at him, a faint bit of colour in her cheeks. "I'm not her," she said.

Richard held out his hand. "I know who you're not," he said. "One dance?"

River stood up, not meeting his eyes. Once they stepped away from the table, Richard placed one hand on River's waist, and took her hand up in his. There was a lot of distance between the pair. "I might break the music," River warned.

Richard gently pulled on River's hand and began a silent dance. "I won't tell if you don't," he responded.

Kaylee watched them, Anita and Ashley's giggling a stark contrast to the solemness of River and Richard. The pairs danced around each other effortlessly, gracefully. They were wearing slightly scruffy clothes, dancing around a dingy room that had seen better days, but in that moment, they were all beautiful.

"How about you?" Nathaniel murmured next to Kaylee. "Want to go for a spin?"

Kaylee looked down at her papers for a long moment. "Sure," she said brightly as she pushed the papers back and stood up.

Nathaniel smiled at her, that knee-weakening smile, and took her offered hand. When they were finally spinning around the table, there was only a little bit of distance between them, nothing like the formal posture of River and Richard. Nathaniel's shoulder was muscular and defined under Kaylee's hand, and she found it a bit hard to think clearly, with the heat of his body so warm. He even smelled good.

After a particularly intricate turn and dip that left Kaylee breathless with laughing, she heard a familiar voice behind her. "Might I cut in?"

She turned her head to see Simon standing there. She was still trying to find some words when Nathaniel said, "Of course," and spun her into Simon's arms.

Simon gave a little half-smile as he took up her hand and hesitantly led her into a dance. He wasn't very good at it, Kaylee thought, but he seemed to want to do it. With her.

She still wasn't sure what had happened earlier that morning, when they'd been doing the dishes. All of a sudden, she wanted to rip off Simon's clothes and jump his bones right there in the kitchen. Sure, those were thoughts she had sometimes, but not as impulses so strong she had to ball her fists up to stop herself. Even thinking about it was a bit awkward. But he couldn't have known what she wanted, right? Not if he was dancing with her like this.

A high-pitched squeal made Kaylee look around. Anita had dipped Ashley so far down his head almost touched the ground, then pulled him back up again. They were both laughing as they completed the dip.

Then, as quick as thought, Anita froze, her smile wiped clean off her face. In its place was a blank expression that chilled Kaylee to the bone.

"Mommy?" Ashley asked in a tiny scared voice.

River let out a whimper and stepped away from Richard. Kaylee wasn't sure what to do, when the Captain's voice came over the intercom, as intense as she ever heard him. "Kaylee! Get to the engine room, I need all we got, now!"

Kaylee pulled out of Simon's embrace and took off for the engine room. As she passed River, she could finally make out what the girl was repeating frantically under her breath.

"Reavers, Reavers, Reavers..."

~~*~~

Zoe gripped the back of Wash's chair hard as her husband manoeuvred Serenity, trying to outrun the Reaver ship. The ship had come from out of nowhere and was almost on them. It would have caught them, too, if Wash hadn't been flying so fast.

The Captain was shouting orders at Jayne, who for once wasn't arguing. Zoe listened to the orders, but the familiar routine of following orders didn't make the panic in her head go away, or the pounding of her heart in her chest. If the Reavers caught them....

"Zoe!" The Captain yelled. "Get as many as you can, go make a barricade in the hold. They'll probably try and come through the main door, once they get us in their grapplers."

Zoe knew what she had to do, but still she hesitated. She didn't want to leave Wash like this, didn't want to die without him. Didn't want to die.

Then let him fly, and you go do your job, she thought sternly to herself. It was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do, but she made herself turn and run down the hall to the kitchen, almost colliding with the Shepard as he came up the stairs from the hold.

Simon was attempting to calm down his frantic sister. The new passengers stood in a huddle, the boy in his mother's arms. As Zoe looked around the room, Inara came up the stairs from the passenger area.

"We've got Reavers on our tail," Zoe said, concentrating on appearing calm. "I need help to put up a barricade in the hold, to give us a last chance."

"Can we use my shuttle to get some of us away?" Inara asked, gripping a chair back with white fingers.

"They're too close," Zoe replied. "If a shuttle leaves, they may go after it. We make a stand here."

"What about weapons?" Richard asked.

Zoe made a decision. "Jayne's up on the bridge. He's coordinating weapons. Go help him."

Richard squeezed Anita's shoulder and headed down the hall. Anita's eyes followed the man as he left.

"As the for the rest of us, we need to move," Zoe said. Book nodded at her and he and Inara went for the stairs.

Nathaniel kissed Anita on the cheek. "I'm going with them," he told her, placing a hand on his son's back. Anita nodded slowly, then turned and walked stiffly toward the passenger dorm.

Zoe didn't have time to argue with them, so she let Anita go. She didn't want to say it, but if Reavers got the ship, it wouldn't matter where they were on the ship. They'd all die.

"Simon, we need your help," Zoe said, going with Nathaniel to the stairs.

"But River--"

"Will die like the rest of us if we don't do something!" Zoe said, keeping the edge of panic out of her voice. She had a job to do, orders to follow. "Leave her!"

Looking as mutinous as he ever had, Simon let go of River's arms and followed Zoe. In the hold, Book and Inara were already moving boxes around. Nathaniel swiftly joined them and started lifting. He must have been a lot stronger than he looked, Zoe thought as he lifted a box she knew to be heavy, all on his own.

Book knew what he was doing, and Zoe let him tell people where to place the boxes. It wouldn't really matter, once the Reavers got in. The air was thick with silent fear, but everyone kept working, as if their actions would somehow make a difference. They were a rag-tag bunch; a preacher, a fugitive doctor, a Companion, but they didn't give up, didn't panic. They were a good crew. They didn't deserve to die like this.

Serenity shuddered and veered so sharply that Zoe almost lost her footing. Far overhead in the kitchen, River began screaming.

Simon dropped the end of the box he was lifting with Nathaniel, and Zoe had to grab Simon's arm to stop him. "She needs help!" Simon shouted.

"Leave her!" Zoe shouted back. "That's an order!"

Jayne and Richard clattered down the stairs, each carrying a pile of weapons. "What's that goram girl screeching over?" Jayne asked gruffly as he began laying the guns on top of the boxes they'd use for cover.

The ship shuddered again and then evened out, and River stopped screaming. The engines' hum reached an almost painful whine.

Zoe grabbed a gun and began checking the ammunition. She didn't know what was happening up there, but she was waiting for that final impact, when the Reavers' magnetic grapplers grabbed Serenity. Until that happened, they still had a chance.

River skipped onto the ramp at the top of the hold, seeming so carefree that Zoe was half tempted to shoot her. "The dead things came," River announced, stepping up on the railing. "We have to turn."

"What are you talking about?" Simon asked.

"The ship." River raised her eyebrows, and her voice lost its childish inflection. "The ship is going to blow up."

"What?" Simon demanded, but Zoe was already moving. She knew River wasn't talking about Serenity. She also knew River could not possibly know what she did, but if there was any chance...

She punched the intercom. "Captain! River says the Reaver ship is going to blow up."

The sound from the intercom crackled. "They stopped matching our moves," came the Captain's voice. "But if they blow, we're still too close." He swore loudly. "Wash, turn us around, now!"

"Hold on to something," Wash said distantly. That was all the warning they got, before Serenity lurched again. The gravity dampeners held, but the momentum caught everyone. Jayne crashed into a stack of boxes, and the top box flew off the pile and struck Book on the head. The Shepherd dropped like a stone.

Nathaniel and Richard were there, lifting the box off the bleeding man, and Simon was at his side a moment later. "He's not dead," Simon said after a moment. "Just a glancing blow, broke the skin."

"Captain?" Zoe said over the intercom.

There was a moment of silence. "They're not following us," the Captain said. Another pause, then an exclamation.

Wash swore as well. "They exploded!" he said. "The goram Reaver ship blew up!"

Zoe let go of the intercom, her knees weak. If Wash hadn't seen the Reaver ship in time.... if River hadn't known the ship would explode...

"I need help in getting him to the infirmary," Simon said, looking at Zoe expectantly.

She would break down later, when there was no one to see. "Jayne, you and Richard get those guns away," Zoe ordered. "Inara, see to River." She went to Book's side.

"I can carry him," Nathaniel said.

Zoe was about to object, that Book was on her ship, that she'd be the one to carry him, when Simon spoke up. "With the potential of a neck injury, it's going to take three of us."

Zoe nodded at the doctor. She'd seen Nathaniel lift those boxes, he was strong, she admitted to herself. He could help her carry one man to the infirmary.

Everyone dispersed, leaving the remains of the pitiful barrier behind. Zoe carried Book's feet, while Nathaniel carried the weight of his upper body and Simon cradled his neck. The awkward procession made it without incident to the infirmary, where Simon began to bustle about, not even paying attention to Zoe or Nathaniel.

"Can we help?" Zoe asked.

"No, not right now," Simon said, running a scanner over Book's neck. "He looks fine, just knocked out. Possible concussion. I don't need any assistance."

Zoe took a step back, a shiver running down her spine. "Let me know if you do," she said before escaping the infirmary, Nathaniel close behind her.

In the hall, Nathaniel gave her a weak smile. "Is life out here always so interesting?" he asked.

"Yes," Zoe said shortly. She pushed her hair back out of her face. A flash of red caught her eye, and she realized she had blood on her arm.

Nathaniel sniffed at the air. "You should get the doctor to look at that," he said, worry on his beautiful face.

"It's just a scratch," Zoe said. The stinging of the cut was slight, and the blood had already stopped flowing. She'd had a lot worse.

However, if anything, her answer didn't reassure Nathaniel. "If not you, then..." his voice tapered off as he slowly turned around, as if in a nightmare.

Not understanding what he was talking about, Zoe looked past the young man. The hallway was still. Zoe barely had the time to wonder where Anita and her son were before she noticed the blood, moving thick and fast over the floor.

Years of training took over, and Zoe was running toward the blood before she thought. She turned around the corner, stepping over the blood on the floor, and jerked to a stop.

In the new passengers' room, Anita lay on the floor, unmoving and pale as death. Her son, covered in blood, had his tiny hands over her wrist. Ashley looked up when Zoe stopped in the doorway, his terrified eyes huge in his face.

"Tyen shiao-duh," Zoe breathed, dropping to her knees beside the boy. She pulled his hands off Anita's wrist, to see a long cut in Anita's flesh under the blood, so very close to the artery. "Simon!" she shouted into the hall.

Nathaniel tore into the room and pushed Zoe away from Anita so hard that she fell to the ground. He grabbed a piece of cloth off the bed and pressed it against Anita's wrist, then yanked her arm up above her head. "Get away from her!" he exclaimed, almost as white as Anita.

"I'm trying to help her!" Zoe retorted, but Nathaniel looked so panicked that she stayed on the other side of the small room.

Ashley had pressed himself back into a corner, watching the scene silently. He put his hands over his mouth as Nathaniel lifted Anita into a sitting position, keeping her arm elevated over her heart. Anita's head lolled back, her eyes half open. She still had to be alive, Zoe thought, watching for the slight movement of her chest from her breathing.

"Richard!" Nathaniel yelled. He wedged Anita against the bed and patted her cheek with his free hand. "Come on, Anita, please don't do this," he whispered. "You need to stay with me, please."

Simon came around the corner. He took a sharp breath at the scene, and tried to kneel next to Anita, but Nathaniel pushed him away. "She needs a doctor!" Simon said forcefully.

"She doesn't need you!" Nathaniel said frantically. He looked over Simon's shoulder as Richard crowed into the doorway. The tall man's jaw dropped in shock.

"Nathaniel, let the doctor help her," Richard said firmly. He gripped the edge of the door so hard that the metal bent under his fingers. "How--"

"We need to get her to the infirmary," Simon interrupted. "She's lost a lot of blood."

Nathaniel lifted Anita effortlessly and almost ran out of the room. Richard stood back to let Nathaniel and Simon out, then hesitated. He looked at Ashley, still cowering in the corner, then at Zoe, panic and worry visible on his face.

"I've got him," Zoe said, understanding what Richard was silently asking. Richard jerked his head in a nod, then vanished.

Zoe turned to Ashley, who was still staring at the place on the ground where his mother had been. When he didn't react, she crawled across the floor to him, wincing at the pain in her shoulder.

"Ashley?" she asked. She could handle screaming soldiers any day, but she didn't know what to do with a kid. "Can you hear me?"

The boy didn't respond. Zoe reached out and gently took his blood-covered hands away from his mouth. He let her lift him to his feet before he looked at her. "Is mommy dead?" he whispered. Zoe had seldom heard a more heartbreaking sound.

"No, mommy's not dead," Zoe said forcefully, and smiled reassuringly. "The doctor and your daddy are going to get her all fixed up, good as new."

The boy looked down at the floor. At first, Zoe thought he was staring at all the blood, then she realized that he was looking at a small knife. She hadn't seen it at first because it was coated in blood.

She had to get him out of there. Getting to her feet, she picked the child up around the middle and left the room. The boy didn't show any signs of life until they passed the infirmary, and he saw his mother lying on the bed in the centre of the room. He began to squirm in Zoe's arms. It was all she could do to hold on to him. She thought about telling him to stop, but instead concentrated on getting up the steps into the kitchen, away from infirmary.

Once they were up the steps, Ashley stopped fighting. He lay limp in Zoe's arms until they reached the kitchen, when Zoe sat him down on the kitchen table and pulled up a chair in front of him. "Now, let's have a look at you," she said. She needed to make sure that all of this blood covering him was his mother's, and that the child was not injured.

Ashley let Zoe feel along his arms and legs, then pat over his stomach and chest. He kept his eyes on her face the entire time.

"All good," Zoe said, then wanted to kick herself. How could she say that, when the boy had watched his mother try to suicide in front of him? Pushing the boy's silky hair off his forehead, Zoe asked, "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Ashley shrugged and touched the end of her necklace. She let him play with the leather for a few minutes. "Mommy told me I had to be quiet," he finally said, his voice no higher than a whisper. "She said she had to make the bad men go away."

"Did she say how?" Zoe asked, picking up a napkin on the table and dipping it into a puddle of water on the table, from a tipped-over glass.

Ashley shook his head.

Zoe washed the blood off Ashley's mouth, then rewet the cloth. "How did you know to put pressure on the wound like that?" she asked as Inara walked into the room. The Companion's eyes went wide at Ashley's appearance, but at a look from Zoe, remained silent.

"Mommy showed me." Ashley pulled up his pant leg and pointed at a fresh scar on his knee. "I fell and got a cut. Mommy pushed on it, and it hurt, but it made the blood stop." He looked at Zoe with very serious eyes. "Did I do right?"

"Of course you did," Zoe said hastily. "That was the best thing for a cut." She went back to washing Ashley's hands, anger at Anita growing inside her chest. What kind of a woman tried to kill herself with her baby son watching? What kind of woman would slice up her wrists, leaving a boy defenceless against Reavers?

Mal came down the steps from the hallway, Jayne right behind him. He frowned at Zoe. "Doctor told us what's going on," the Captain said. "How's everyone else?"

"We're good," Zoe said. She gave Ashley's hands one final wipe.

Mal nodded. Jayne made a noise in the back of his throat. "Some kind of coward, tries to off herself before Reavers come on board," Jayne said, sounding disgusted.

"Jayne!" the Captain said in a threatening voice, but it was too late. Ashley bounced to his feet on the tabletop and pulled himself up to his full height, little hands balled into fists.

"You take that back!" the boy shouted. "My mommy's not a coward!" Jayne looked surprised, as if he hadn't realized the boy would hear him. Ashley was the closest to tears Zoe had ever seen him. "Take it back!"

"Ashley," came a new voice. Richard came into the room at a quick walk and scooped the boy off the table. "Stop."

"He called mommy a coward!" Ashley said hotly, glaring daggers at Jayne.

"It doesn't matter what he said," Richard said. "Mommy wants to see you now."

The boy whipped his head around, anger gone. "Is she okay?" he asked.

Richard nodded. "She's going to be just fine."

Ashley wrapped his arms tight around Richard's neck, and buried his face in the man's shoulder. Richard gave Zoe a nod of thanks, then headed for the stairs.

"I just meant that any--" Jayne started, making Zoe heartily wish she could just shoot the son of a bitch.

"Shut your mouth, or I will shut it for you," Mal said, voice low and even. Jayne stopped talking.

Richard faced Jayne, one hand steadying on Ashley's back. "I agree with you," Richard said, shocking everyone in the room. "Any woman who would kill herself out of fear of Reavers, and leaving her child defenceless, would be a coward." He then continued down the hall.

"What happened here?" Inara said, breaking the silence.

The Captain turned around. "Jayne, get out of my face, now," he said, glaring at the other man. Without a word, Jayne stomped off down the hall toward his bunk.

Zoe stood up and pushed her chair against the table, hoping the movement hid the tremor in her hands. Slowly, she explained to Inara what she had seen, down below. During the story, River drifted into the room, spinning lightly on the balls of her feet.

When Zoe finished, the Captain crossed his arms over his chest. "None of this seems right," he grumbled. "Wouldn't have figured Anita for a woman who'd leave her son for Reavers, do you, Zoe?"

"No, sir." Zoe was tempted to say that she suspected Anita would be waiting, knife at her son's throat, waiting until the last minute to spare her son death at Reavers' hands, but she held her tongue.

"She made the bad men go away," River said, stopping at the table and touching the bloody handprints on the tabletop.

"What?" the Captain asked.

River raised her fingers to stare at the blood. "She let the skins have one last chance at vengeance," the odd girl explained. "She let them kill one last time."

A terrible, horrible idea rose in Zoe's head, and she tried to push it away. The Reavers sewed bits of their victims' skin into their clothes. It sounded like River meant... but no. That was impossible, as impossible as walking free in space with no suit.

The Captain shook his head. "I'm going to talk to them," he said to no one in particular.

"Do you need me to go with you?" Zoe asked. All she wanted to do was lie down and shake, but she'd always do her job before letting her own weaknesses come to the fore.

"No," Mal said. "Why don't you go see if Wash needs any help."

Her husband needed no help to pilot the ship, and they both knew it. Didn't matter, though. The rush of relief was overwhelming. "Yes, sir."

Anything to get away from these memories of useless blood and horrible nightmare-inducing stories from little girls.

~~*~~

Simon steadied the bag of liquid by Anita's arm, bumping into Nathaniel as he did so. The young man insisted on touching Anita, almost to the point of indecency in an infirmary. Simon would have kicked him out, but the second Nathaniel stopped touching Anita, her vital signs had dropped like a stone. She must have unconsciously registered Nathaniel's presence, Simon told himself, but he let the young man be.

Richard had just left to get the child. Nathaniel stroked Anita's face, white under the drying specks of blood. The man hadn't interfered with Anita's treatment after Richard had stepped in, only kept touching Anita.

By rights, the woman should be dead. She had lost so much blood that Simon was surprised she still breathed. But here, with Nathaniel touching her, and fluids slowly dripping into her body through a needle, her vital signs were strengthening. Simon had never seen anything like it.

Anita made a whimpering noise, and opened her eyes. She looked around the room, not really focusing on anything. "Nathaniel?"

"I'm right here, Anita," Nathaniel said reassuringly, putting his hand on her cheek. "You're going to be okay."

Anita blinked a couple of times. "Where's Richard?"

"He'll be back in a minute," Nathaniel promised.

"Did he go to get Erin?"

Nathaniel sucked in a quick breath, then shook his head. "Anita, Erin's been dead for a very long time," he said softly.

Anita looked up at the ceiling, tears filling her eyes. Simon felt like a voyeur, but he couldn't leave, not with two patients. Book was sleeping safely, but might still take a turn for the worse.

"Anita, do you remember what happened?" Nathaniel asked after a minute.

Anita nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek before she could blink them away. "She was so old, but she wasn't," Anita said. "She told me it was okay, but it wasn't, and she died and I had to go away."

Nathaniel kissed away Anita's tears and rested his forehead against her hair. "Anita, I need you to concentrate," he urged. "Do you remember what happened today? With Ashley?"

Anita took a few deep breaths and nodded. "I do." She tried to sit up, and Nathaniel helped her before Simon could protest. "Where is he?"

"Richard went to get him," Nathaniel said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "He's okay."

Simon stepped up to adjust the monitor on Anita's chest. She followed his movements with dark eyes. "You'll be fine in a little while," Simon said in what he hoped was a passable bedside manner. "We didn't have a compatible donor on board, so you'll need to take it very easy for a few days."

Anita nodded. "Thank you."

Richard entered the room, carrying Ashley on one arm. The boy's face lit up when he saw his mother awake.

"Hey there," Anita said with a smile. Richard carefully put Ashley in her lap, and the boy hugged his mother tightly. Anita ran her uninjured hand over her son's hair, closing her eyes.

She stayed that way until footsteps on the stairs announced a new visitor. Captain Reynolds strode into the infirmary. He looked quickly at the sleeping Shepherd, off to the side of the room, then at Simon. Simon shook his head and stepped back. He wasn't getting involved in this.

"What happened?" Mal asked abruptly.

Anita opened her eyes, so calm now that Simon found it hard to think that only a few minutes ago, she'd been crying over someone named Erin. "I slipped."

Mal looked at her. "That wasn't no shaving accident," he said, his voice verging on anger. "Is River right?"

"What did River say?" Simon asked, unable to help himself.

Nathaniel leaned closer to Anita. "River's a seer," he said softly.

Anita regarded the Captain. "I don't know what happened to the Reavers," she finally said.

"Who told you something happened to the Reavers?" Mal asked, looking at Simon, who briefly shook his head. Since Anita woke up, no one had mentioned a thing to her about the Reavers.

Anita smiled then, and the expression made Simon go cold. "I really don't know anything," she said. No matter what else Mal tried, Anita wouldn't say anything more, and the two men remained silent. Ashley appeared to ignore the entire scene as he clung to his mother.

After a while of Anita refusing to answer any question, Mal left in disgust. Anita leaned back against Nathaniel, sighing as Richard put his hand on her shoulder. "All's well that ends well," Anita murmured, closing her eyes again.

Simon very firmly kept his mouth shut.


	4. Chapter 4

Inara watched the tea leaves swirl slowly in her cup, sinking gently in the hot water. That was how she felt on that day. Sinking slowly, the thin tendril of fear swirling in her head.

Not for the first time, she had lain awake in her bed on the shuttle last night, shaking. Why was she here, in the dark cold of space, on this ship with these people, with no real defences against Reavers or pirates or even space debris?

With a start, Inara shook herself out of her thoughts. She knew why she was here, and not on a Core planet with its easy work. She had made her decision, and even as she threatened to leave Serenity, this life was in her blood now.

"No!"

Inara looked up to see the child, Ashley, shove his book away on the table with remarkable strength for his age. The book hit an empty cup, knocking it to the ground with a clatter.

Nathaniel took a deep breath, looking as if he were trying to contain his temper. "Go pick up that cup, Ashley," he said.

"No!" the child shouted again, climbing down out of his chair. "I don't want to!"

Ashley's yells bordered on the hysterical, and Inara looked away. Simon had told her earlier that morning that he had heard the boy talking throughout the night. He must not have had much sleep, and after what he had seen happen to his mother the previous day, Inara understood why he was so upset.

Anita, who had been sitting on a chair at the far end of the room, stood up and intercepted her son's dash for freedom. "Ashley, you need to stop this," Anita said forcefully. "This is not acceptable behaviour."

"I don't care!" Ashley said, trying to twist out of his mother's grasp. Nathaniel quickly joined Anita beside the frantic child.

"Stop it!" Anita exclaimed, her own voice a little hysterical. She gave the boy a small shake. "Why can't you just behave for two more days?"

"I hate you!" Ashley shouted, kicking at his mother. "I hate you and I want to go home!"

"All right, that's it," Nathaniel said, picking up Ashley around the middle and hoisting the boy over his shoulder. "You're going to lie down for a while."

Ashley's protest descended into an unhappy wail as his father carried him to the stairs down to the passenger dorm. Anita stayed crouched on the floor, staring at the spot where her misbehaving child had recently stood. Her shoulders were slumped in exhaustion, and Inara saw the dark circles under her eyes.

Zoe appeared in the door from the hallway to the bridge. Her eyebrows were raised in a question, to which Inara shook her head. Zoe nodded and went back down the hall.

"Would you care for some tea?" Inara said into the silence. Anita's head swung around, and Inara was struck by the hollowness in her dark eyes.

After a moment of examination, Anita shook her head and stood up. Slowly, she retrieved the wayward cup and set it on the table, then sank into the chair Nathaniel had just vacated. Inara pretended that she hadn't seen the shaking in Anita's hands.

Inara picked up her cup and took a chair at the table. She waited until Anita looked at her again, then smiled in a non-threatening and friendly way. "Space travel is hard on children, sometimes," she said.

Although Inara had meant it in a polite way, Anita frowned at her. "I'm not making any excuses for my son," the woman said sharply.

"I didn't think you were," Inara said, verbally retreating. She hadn't meant to put the woman on the defensive.

Anita put her elbows on the table and buried her head in her hands. They sat in an uncomfortable silence until Richard appeared by Anita's side. He nodded at Inara, then put his hand on Anita's shoulder. She jerked her head up, startled.

"Sorry," Richard murmured. "I just wanted to tell you that everything's okay."

Anita pushed her hair out of her face. "What happened?"

Richard brushed his fingers over her cheek. "Ashley proclaimed loudly that he hated you, Nathaniel, me, this ship, space, reading, and strangely, peanuts, before bursting into tears. He fell asleep a couple of minutes later."

Anita sighed, taking Richard's hand in hers and twining their fingers together. "Good to know he hates us all," she murmured.

"He doesn't hate anyone, he's just tired and scared," Richard said. "He's not sure how to deal with--"

"Not now, Richard," Anita interrupted, careful to not look at Inara.

"Sure." Richard ran his hand over Anita's hair. "Why don't you go get some sleep? You look pretty tired yourself."

"I was up all night with Ashley," Anita reminded him.

"All the better. It might do Ashley a world of good to wake up with both his mom and dad there."

Anita stood up and reluctantly let go of Richard's hand. "Maybe you're right."

Richard smiled at Anita and kissed the top of her head. "I'll see you in a bit," he said. As Anita walked-- no, dragged herself to the stairs, Richard's calm facade slipped, and Inara saw the worry etched into the lines of his beautiful face. Then the expression was gone.

Inara smiled at Richard, then went back to her tea. Every time she thought she had these new passengers figured out, they did something to surprise her. Of all of them, Inara thought she understood Nathaniel the best. He might act like the young doting father, but there was something in the turn of his head at times, the way he watched people, the weight of consideration in his eyes, that reminded Inara very strongly of herself.

Anita was a complete mystery. It was obvious she cared about her son, but her attempt at suicide the previous day was so at odds with Inara's impression of the strong woman, that Inara questioned her own conclusions at first. But they were solid, her views of this woman. So how could she have tried to kill herself in front of her son?

It was those doubts, coupled with River's strange and disturbing comment after the Reaver ship blew up, that had caused Inara to think very hard as she lay awake in bed all night. As a Companion, she had been places in the Core worlds that no one else on this ship, not even Simon, had been. She had heard stories that none of them would dream of. She had serviced a client once, who drank a little too heavily and spoke a little too freely. He tried to impress her with what she had supposed were ghost stories from Earth, long forgotten. Of people who could use magic to read minds, make people believe things, even raise the dead. She had thought them only drunken ramblings.

Until River came and began to speak in whispers of what lay in the minds of Serenity's crew. Until River spoke of skins and vengeance and blood.

"Penny for your thoughts," Richard said. He smiled at Inara as she looked up at him. "You seemed to be thinking too hard," he said.

For all that he was bigger than Mal, Richard held an innocent appeal about him. Inara wanted to like him, which made her distrustful. She had too many years of practice at making people like her, to fall for that so easily. "I also had a hard time sleeping," Inara said, settling on a safe topic.

Richard sighed. "It was a bad night for everyone," he said.

He sat down in Anita's abandoned chair and drummed his fingers on the table. Inara suddenly wanted to ask him about his relationship with Anita. Their body language told her that Richard and Anita were lovers, but she could tell the same thing about Nathaniel and Anita. That was mere gossip, however, and Inara resolved to leave her curiosity unsatisfied.

Richard looked so lonely that Inara had to offer something. "Would you care to play chess?" she asked.

The look of sudden relief on Richard's face made Inara glad she asked. As she stood to retrieve the chessboard from the drawer in the wall, she found herself looking forward to the game. They would talk, Inara hoped, and she would learn more about Serenity's new passengers. Then, maybe, she might begin to unravel the mystery of these strange people.

~~*~~

Zoe leaned against the doorway to the Shepherd's bunk and watched as Simon took the sleeping man's pulse. "How is he, Simon?" she asked in a low voice.

Simon removed his fingers from Book's wrist and pulled the blanket a little higher over the man's chest. "He'll be fine," the doctor said. "He's in no danger."

"Then why is he still unconscious?"

"It's the drugs I gave him for the concussion," Simon explained. "They'll make him sleep for a little longer." He gathered up his things and stepped into the hall. Not having anything else to do, Zoe followed him to the infirmary.

A peal of childish laughter from the cargo hold caught Simon's attention. "It's amazing how four hours of sleep can give a child a new outlook on life," Simon said. "He certainly is feeling better. What are they doing?"

"The boy needed to run around, and it was either have him tear around the hold, or have him go pester Jayne on the bridge," Zoe said. "It's hard on children cooped up on ships in space."

Simon began putting equipment in drawers. "I'm surprised that Captain Reynolds would let them have the run of the cargo hold."

"It was either that or another tantrum," Zoe said, heading for the door.

"I guess," Simon said slowly. "Children need activity."

Zoe arched an eyebrow at Simon. "I was talking about Jayne," she said as she exited the room.

Although Zoe would never admit to it, she was still on edge from the narrowly averted Reaver attack the day before. River's words had stayed in her head, and she had woken in a cold sweat from nightmares. Wash had asked her what was wrong, but Zoe couldn't answer. She was stronger than that, strong enough not to be woken in the night by nightmares brought on by childish nursery rhymes.

For now, she resolved to push those fears away as she walked into the cargo hold. Ashley and the two men were throwing a ball between them, every semblance of a child at play with his family.

Anita sat on the hood of the mule, watching the game solemnly. Zoe's eyes lingered on the woman for a moment. She was very pale, her dark hair loose about her face, yet she sat with her back ramrod straight, her hands placed carefully on her knees.

Ashley threw the oversized ball over Richard's head. The tall man went to catch the ball with an exaggerated movement, and it flew though his outstretched hands. Squealing with delight, Ashley jumped up and down until Nathaniel picked him up and hoisted him into the air.

"All-time champion!" Nathaniel proclaimed, swinging Ashley around. Zoe heard a giggle, and looked around to see River watching the game from behind the stairs. The girl saw Zoe looking at her, and did something that she never had. She smiled at Zoe.

The girl was beautiful, Zoe realized. When she wasn't screaming or terrified or confused, River was a beauty.

"Where's the ball?" Ashley asked.

Richard looked around. "It's gone." He grinned at Ashley and Nathaniel. "We could always play Ashley-ball."

"Yes!" Ashley crowed. "Ashley-ball!"

What was that? Zoe wondered. She got her answer, as well as a moment of panic, as Nathaniel took a few steps back and threw his son at Richard.

Richard caught the boy easily in a scoop-hold, then heaved the child back at Nathaniel.

Heart beating a little rapidly, Zoe found she couldn't look away. The gravity on the ship was standard. She had held Ashley the previous night, he was a normal weight for a five-year-old. No matter how strong they were, two grown men shouldn't be able to throw and catch the kid that easily. it just wasn't possible.

Movement on the upper ramps made Zoe look up. The Captain stood there with Inara. Mal met Zoe's eyes, and she knew he was worried by this, yet another strange incident with these strange people.

Nathaniel adjusted Ashley in his arms, then tossed the boy into the air. Ashley twisted in the air, and Richard had to take a few steps to the side to get under the boy. He was slightly off-balance when Ashley landed in his arms, making Richard slam into part of the box barrier that no one had thought to dismantle, after Anita's blood-letting the previous day.

For the precariously constructed structure, already shifted around in the frantic escape from the Reavers, the impact was too much. The heavy top box slid off its perch and crashed into another crate, before bouncing once more and crashing down on the black box the passengers had brought.

The box cracked with the sound of shattering glass. Richard swung around, horror dawning on his face. There was a moment of complete stillness in the hold, like the sound of the moment's calm before bullets came in a hail.

Then the box cracked further, as if there was something inside trying to get out. Richard, only a few feet from the box, swung around with Ashley in his arms. He saw Zoe, and she only had a moment to brace herself before the man flung the child at her.

The boy slammed into her, and Zoe fell back under the impact. She looked up in time to see Richard running toward the box, putting himself between it and the others, a second before the black box broke apart. Something inside the box unfolded and flung itself at Richard.

Anita's scream echoed in the hold as the thing.... no, a man, Zoe realized, pulled Richard down. Richard's short yell was cut off into a wet gurgle.

Zoe got to her feet, world crystallizing into an adrenaline-fuelled battlefield. She shoved Ashley behind her and drew the firearm at her side.

Richard's attacker, all long black hair and ragged clothes, rolled off his victim. Zoe could see that Richard's throat was torn out, making him thrash as he scrambled to breathe. The man, his face a snarling mask of blood and glowing blue eyes, looked around and saw the closest person. Zoe.

"Hey!" Nathaniel yelled frantically, throwing something at the man. It hit his shoulder, making the man whirl around. He leaped with inhuman strength and landed on Nathaniel, sinking his teeth into Nathaniel's shoulder.

Anita stood on the ground in front of the mule, her hands full of a short sword and a gun. "Jean-Claude!" she screamed, aiming the gun at the struggling pair. "Nathaniel!"

The man lifted his head from Nathaniel's bloody neck and stared at Anita. He climbed off Nathaniel and stalked toward Anita on his hands and feet.

Zoe felt movement by her leg as Ashley suddenly darted past her. Zoe dropped her gun and barely caught the boy by the shirt. She yanked him backwards hard, wrapping both arms around him and somehow managing to clap one hand over the struggling boy's mouth.

The bloody man didn't seem to notice the scuffle. He continued to slowly stalk toward Anita.

Anita watched the man. As Zoe watched, the fear in her eyes was replaced with sadness, and then resolve. She raised her gun higher, and moved her finger to the trigger.

The man stumbled and dropped to his knees, his head down. "Ma petite?" he said thickly.

Anita quickly moved her finger from the trigger and put the gun up. "Jean-Claude?" she said hesitantly, almost hopefully.

"Where are we?" the man asked.

Anita took two careful steps toward him. "Is it you?" Anita asked.

The man nodded as shudders passed over his body.

Zoe wanted to yell at Anita to shoot the monster that had just attacked her men, when Richard convulsed again. Then his skin split from the inside, bones sliding through exposed flesh, as if something inside of him fought to get out.

The world got grey around the edges, and Zoe made herself keep breathing. Fur crawled over those bones, flesh reformed, until an animal stood up in place of Richard. The animal, like a dog but almost as big as a pony, padded across the floor to Nathaniel. The other man sat up at the animal's urging, shaking his head.

It had to be a wolf, Zoe thought, mesmerized. No one had seen a wolf in hundreds of years. They went extinct on Earth-That-Was before the planet was used up. But now, here one was, in Richard's place

The wolf stopped by the bloody, ragged man, and whimpered. The man reached up a shaking hand to touch the wolf's head, and the wolf nudged forward and began licking the blood off the man's face.

Anita laid down her short sword and walked to the man and the wolf. The animal licked over her hand with a bloody tongue, then rubbed its head against her thigh. Slowly, almost reverently, Anita touched the man's face with her fingers. "I thought we'd lost you," she said.

The man went up on his knees and wrapped his arms around Anita's waist, pressing his face against her stomach. She took a shuddering breath, then put one hand on his head. The other hand, the one that still held the gun, she kept by her side.

The room was still. Ashley trembled against Zoe's arms, but he made no sound as he watched his mother hold the monster that had almost killed Richard and Nathaniel.

Anita raised her eyes from the man and the wolf, and looked at Zoe. Anita stared at her son for a moment, then turned her head. Zoe followed her gaze, and had to swallow hard at the expression on the Captain's face. She had seen strong and well-armed men quail under that stare.

Anita just stared at Mal, wolf at her side, as the man with blood on his face clung to her as if she was a lifeline.


	5. Chapter 5

Mal gripped the metal railing so hard that the metal cut into his palms. He didn't understand what he had just seen, or what had happened. He would have sworn that the black box was too small to hold a body. But it wasn't, Mal realized, taking in the shattered remains of the box. It was just big enough to hold a corpse, an unmoving, unbreathing body.

Yet that corpse was up and moving around, holding onto Anita as tightly as it could.

Anita raised her eyes from the man, who she'd called Jean-Claude, to Mal. Mal was so angry that he couldn't see straight, and she just stood there looking at him.

The wolf, a real goram wolf, gave a short bark and nuzzled against Jean-Claude, licking his face. To all appearances, that wolf had to be Richard, licking his own blood off the man's face. How could Richard be a wolf, after having his throat torn out not one minute before?

At Mal's side, Inara made a small sound, and it pulled Mal back to himself. "Stick around Jayne," he murmured.

"What?" Inara asked.

"Stick with Jayne or Zoe," Mal repeated. "Someone with a gun." He pried his hands off the rail and headed for the stairs. It was high time that these people told him what the hell kind of craziness they'd brought on board his ship.

Anita helped Jean-Claude to his feet and put his arm across her shoulder, then helped him walk across the floor of the cargo hold toward the passenger dorms. The wolf, so big that its shoulders reached Anita's waist, walked at her side.

Anita paused by Nathaniel, but he shook his head. Nathaniel stood and quickly walked to Zoe, still holding Ashley tightly. "I can take him," Nathaniel said, holding out his hands.

Mal couldn't see Zoe's face as he continued down the stairs, but he heard her say, "Your neck's bleeding."

"It's fine," Nathaniel said. "Please give me my son."

Zoe loosened her hold on the boy, who almost jumped into his father's arms, clinging to the man like a limpet. Nathaniel backed against the wall to let Anita and Jean-Claude through the door.

Mal gave Zoe a look as he passed. They had worked together for so long, he didn't need to tell her to get armed and to keep alert, protect everyone else on board. She returned his glare. She knew where he was going, and that nothing she said would be able to convince him to change his mind. That didn't mean she wasn't pissed about it, though.

Simon hovered anxiously by the infirmary door as Anita guided Jean-Claude down the stairs. "You should probably bring him in here," the doctor said, and Mal wondered what he had seen of the attack in the hold.

Carefully, Anita helped Jean-Claude navigate the stairs, as the man's legs didn't seem to be working right. When they reached the floor, Jean-Claude's knees buckled and Anita caught him before he fell.

"Come on, almost there," she said in a voice that Mal almost didn't recognize.

Jean-Claude regained his feet and walked unsteadily into the infirmary.

Simon looked at Mal, confused. "All I heard was screaming," Simon said. "Where did he come from?"

"That is a question that I seek to have answered," Mal replied. A flash of colour around the corner made Mal turn his head. River stood by Book's room door, a stubborn expression on her face. "River, go up to Zoe," he ordered.

River shook her head. "Sleeping man can't stop the teeth," she said.

So she had seen what occurred in the hold. "No one's going to be attacking the preacher," Mal said.

River shook her head again, her hair falling over her eyes in a move too much like the bloody man in the infirmary for Mal's comfort.

"Are we in danger?" Simon asked, his eyes darting to River, then lifting to the general direction of the engine room.

"We're always in danger," Mal retorted. "You go sit with River, make sure that the preacher's okay." That ought to get the doctor out of harm's way. Sure, it left Mal standing alone with these people, but then no one else in his crew would get hurt.

Once Simon reluctantly crossed the floor, Mal took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He really wished that he had a bigger gun, but even Jayne's Vera wouldn't make him feel secure in walking into that room. He went in anyway.

Anita had sat Jean-Claude in the examination chair and was helping him to wash the blood off his face. The wolf stood between the chair and the door, and growled at Mal as he entered the room.

"I'm sure you don't mind us using your infirmary," Anita said.

"The hell I don't," Mal said, unable to look away from the wolf. The thing was challenging him, he knew. He had never seen an animal with such intelligence in its eyes, and Mal no longer doubted that the animal was really Richard. But how could it be?

"Too bad," Anita said. She pushed the tangle of black hair off Jean-Claude's face. The man only had eyes for Anita, staring at her as if she was the only real thing in his world. "How are you doing?" she murmured to Jean-Claude.

"Where..." the man's voice broke, and he cleared his throat. "How long was I in there?"

"A little over four years," Anita said, her voice a disturbing mix of pain and sorrow and regret.

"Four years," Jean-Claude breathed. "Then that little boy out there..."

"That's Ashley," Anita said. "I wanted to leave him at home, but Damian couldn't keep him safe and be in charge of everything at the same time."

"You left Damian behind?" Jean-Claude asked. He frowned, more personality seeping into his face. "He is not harmed, by you being so far--" For the first time, Jean-Claude looked around, his eyes lingering on Mal for a moment in a way that Mal found very disconcerting. There was a hunger there, and it didn't look like food-hunger. "Ma petite, where are we?"

"We're almost to Gunnerole, to Charlotte's people in Black Canyon," Anita said.

Jean-Claude's eyes grew wide. "So far out?" he demanded. "Non, non, you should have left me, if they find you out here--"

"Hey!" Anita exclaimed, taking Jean-Claude's face in her hands. "I wasn't going to leave you! I couldn't lose you!" She wrapped her arms around him, holding him as tightly as he had held her, minutes before.

Mal shook his head. Every word they uttered just added to the mystery. He needed answers, and didn't have time for a touching reunion. "Anita," he said. When she had pulled back enough to see him, he went on. "Perhaps you'd care to explain to me why you felt the necessity to bring someone on board my ship in a crate?"

Not that he didn't have enough problems with the last person who came onto his ship in a box, he reminded himself. But at least River never tore anyone's throat out with her teeth.

Anita looked past Mal at the open infirmary door. "Shut the door and I'll tell you."

Her voice strongly reminded Mal of that old nursery rhyme his old grandmother used to tell him. Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly. "I'm not exactly seeing the benefit to me in that offer."

Anita suddenly pushed away from Jean-Claude. "You don't understand!" she shouted. "Just by being here, we're putting everyone in danger! By being so far out, everyone we meet is at risk! Anyone who hears this puts their life on the line!"

The wolf looked at her, then left its place on the floor between Mal and Jean-Claude to pad over to Anita. It licked her arm, then took her hand in its jaws. Mal had his gun halfway out of its holster before he realized that the wolf was just trying to get her attention, not biting down.

Heart pounding, Mal eased his gun back into its holster. Jean-Claude regarded him curiously now, but after a cursory glance, Mal would not look into the man's eyes. It was almost as if the man could read his mind.

Hoping with all his might that he wasn't making a fatal mistake, Mal turned around and slid the infirmary door shut.

"All right, then." Mal leaned against the door, his hand on his hip near his gun. "Why'd you pack him into a box?" He wanted to only ask the one question, but all the other unanswered mysteries beat at his brain, and the words kept spilling out of his mouth. "Why'd he try to eat Richard? And what exactly happened to Richard?"

The woman pushed her hair away from her face, and for the first time that day, Mal caught sight of her wrist. The long cut that had graced her pale skin yesterday was gone.

"Jean-Claude's a... well, he's a bit different," Anita said, but Mal was already shaking his head.

"No way, not this time. These ain't no exploding Reavers, this is my crew on my ship!" Mal exclaimed, nearly yelling.

"What do you want me to say?" Anita shouted back.

"How about the truth?"

Anita glared. "What I said, before, I wasn't joking about that. If the authorities learn that I've told you all this, then you are dead. Do you understand?"

"And I'll say it again," Mal replied. "You're going to tell me what's going on, or we are going to have a problem."

Jean-Claude, who had been watching the exchange, interrupted. "Ma petite."

Anita looked at him, and they seemed to communicate silently. "Right," she muttered. She began to unbutton her jacket. "Promise me you won't interfere," she said to Mal.

"Interfere in what?"

The jacket fell to the ground, and Anita lifted her hands to the top buttons on her shirt. "Do you really want the truth?" she asked, smoothing the cloth back from her throat.

Mal suddenly found it difficult to breathe. "Yes," he said, although he was beginning to doubt that.

Anita's eyes were wide as she looked at him, weighing what she saw. Such ancient eyes. "Jean-Claude's a vampire."

"No," Mal said immediately. "Ain't no such things as vampires."

"Just as there are no such things as werewolves," Jean-Claude said, the sarcasm thick in his cultured accented voice. "Are you really so sure of that?"

The wolf stood and paced across the room. Mal wanted to deny it all, because this talk of vampires and werewolves was a thousand types of crazy. But he'd had a perfect view of Richard in the cargo hold, as the man's body split open and the wolf had formed in its place.

"I need you to not interfere," Anita continued as she climbed up onto the examination chair and settled herself in Jean-Claude's lap.

Mal licked his lips. "What are you going to do?" he asked, even though he had a bit of an inkling.

Anita turned her head to look at him. "He needs blood."

Blood. Jean-Claude had ripped up Richard's throat, had very nearly done a similar number on Nathaniel, and she was going to offer up her neck to him? Mal tried to protest, but it seemed as if he had forgotten how to speak.

Jean-Claude sat up as Anita pulled her hair to the side and tilted her head, offering the man her bare neck. The man licked the corner of his mouth as he put one hand on Anita's back, the other hand cradling her head. As he opened his mouth, Mal saw the points of his fangs.

The man, or vampire, or whatever the hell he was, sighed, then used those fangs to pierce the skin on Anita's throat. She tensed for a second, her thighs tightening around Jean-Claude's hips, then she let out a soft moan and relaxed into his hold as Jean-Claude set his mouth over the wound and began to suck.

It wasn't like eating, not in any way Mal had ever seen. It was too close to sex, the way Jean-Claude held Anita, the way her mouth was half-open, her eyes closed. Mal wasn't much into watching, but this whole thing made him feel like a voyeur. He looked away, and found the wolf staring up at him, unblinking.

Crossing his arms, Mal turned away slightly and examined the walls of the infirmary. His head spun with the little bits of information Anita gave him. All his life, Mal had scoffed at the idea of magic, and vampires and werewolves were just another part of that. Right?

But so were mind-readers. Mal hadn't ever thought that someone could read another person's thoughts, not until he'd heard River do it, in her fragile child's voice and broken words. She knew things, things she couldn't. There wasn't an explanation for it, but Mal hadn't ever thought it was magic.

He looked back at the wolf. Richard had seemed like a normal man, friendly and confident, even if he was a little too strong. Was that it? Part of being a werewolf? Mal desperately wanted to protest, wanted to take himself an hour back in time, so he didn't ever need to know about this kind of thing.

Jean-Claude, his eyes glowing unnaturally, sat back, wiping his mouth with his hand. Anita swayed for a moment, but then opened her eyes. "Was that enough?" she asked.

Jean-Claude nodded, his eyes returning to normal. "I have had my fill."

Anita carefully climbed off his lap, a bit unsteady on her feet, but she managed to pull up the small stool and sit down before looking expectantly at Mal.

A thousand questions in his head, Mal settled on the most pressing one. "Why would the Alliance want us dead if we learned about this?" he asked.

Anita sighed. "You have to promise me that you won't tell a soul about this."

"If it's so secret, then why are you planning on telling me?"

"Because you're like me," Anita said. "You won't ever stop until you learn the truth, and if you go looking for it, people are going to hear, and you are going to die. This way, you might have a chance at no one finding out that you know."

Mal blinked. The logic was convoluted, and he wasn't sure he was too pleased with the comparison, but deep down, he knew she was right. He'd keep digging until he figured it out.

"So. Vampires," he prodded.

"How much do you know of the exodus from Earth?" Anita asked.

"Earth-that-was?" Mal frowned. What could this have to do with anything? "Planet got used up, everybody left."

"Not everyone." Anita reached over and put her hand over Jean-Claude's, holding on as if in need of reassurance. "Well over five hundred years ago, a few countries acknowledged vampires, let them live out in the open. That charming sentiment lasted for about thirty years, but by then the vampires were growing in number and in impact."

"So they banned us again," Jean-Claude said. His voice was so cold that Mal suppressed a shiver. "One day, we were part of the community, the next..."

"The next, the police were authorized to shoot them in the street," Anita continued. There was a deep buried pain in her words. "We managed to get most of them hidden, but not everyone." She took a deep breath.

"We?" Mal demanded. "Who's 'we'?"

"Me and Jean-Claude, and the others," Anita said.

That would make Anita over five centuries old. Mal opened his mouth to object, but was it any stranger for her to be so old, on top of vampires and werewolves?

"It didn't stop there," Anita continued. "People were also getting nervous with lycanthropes and witches, anyone magical. During the skylifts, the government began testing everyone before tossing them into the ships, to make sure they didn't have any preternatural characteristics. Anyone who did, got left behind."

"Wait a minute," Mal said, pushing off the wall. "The history all said that no one was left on Earth."

Anita gave him a look. "They lied to you," she explained. "They made us into ghost stories, fairy tales. They thought if they left us with a barren planet, we'd die off and leave them in peace. That they could forget about us."

"Earth-that-was exploded," Mal said. "It's gone."

"No, it's not," Anita said solemnly. "Now do you understand?"

He did, and he had to take a moment to deal with the enormity of the concept. If people knew that Earth-that-was still existed... There wasn't a power in the 'verse to keep them from heading back.

"Why do I believe you?" he asked. He shook his head. "It all sounds like fancy lies."

"It does, doesn't it?" Anita said absently. She let Jean-Claude turn her hand over and stroke her palm with his fingers. "All I can say is that I'm not lying."

Mal paced across the room, keeping as far as he could from the wolf. "So why are you out here?"

"That is an excellent question, ma petite," Jean-Claude said. "What happened?"

"Don't you know?" Mal asked.

"Non, I do not," Jean-Claude said.

Anita gently withdrew her hand and stood up. "It was Marcel's people," she said to Jean-Claude. "He hadn't forgiven us for defeating him in the last battle, so he managed to get to you before I knew what was going on."

Jean-Claude went still, with the sort of motionlessness that only dead bodies had. "He slew Asher with his own hand, and you say he had not forgiven us?" the man said flatly.

She turned away from him and placed both hands on the cool metal of the wall. "That's what he told me."

The room grew so silent that Mal could hear the ticking from Serenity's engine. "When did you see Marcel?" Jean-Claude finally asked.

"When I bargained for your release," Anita said without turning around. "We knew he'd gotten off planet with you, but it took me three years to find out where. I knew he still had you in a cross-wrapped coffin and that you weren't dead, but that's all we knew."

"So you came to get me," Jean-Claude said.

"Yes." Anita traced patterns on the wall with her fingers. "I had to."

"And you brought Richard and Nathaniel and your son," Jean-Claude continued. "What did you bargain with?"

Anita finally turned around. Mal saw the answer in her eyes, and he had to look away.

"No, ma petite" Jean-Claude said vehemently. "Tell me that you didn't."

"I had to," Anita protested, a fine tremor in her voice. "Marcel would have killed Richard or Nathaniel, but not me."

Jean-Claude glared down at the wolf, which cringed. Anita rushed to the animal's side.

"Don't do this!" Anita exclaimed. "I did what I had to do, I got you out and no one had to die!"

"How long?" The words dropped like stones in the air.

Anita ran her hands over the wolf's head, unable or unwilling to look up. "A week," she whispered.

It was as if Mal wasn't even in the room. Jean-Claude went still again. "You should have left me," he said after a minute.

"No, I shouldn't have!" Anita almost shouted. "It was only a week and he didn't do anything-- I'll be fine, I promise!"

Jean-Claude got to his feet. "Was there nothing else he wanted?" the vampire demanded. "Was there nothing else Marcel would have accepted in trade for my freedom, other than your body?"

Anita's hands stopped moving. Mal couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew what she was doing, had seen it in many a soldier in the war. Shutting down, going away. "He wanted Ashley," she whispered.

The wolf twisted in her grasp, looking as shocked as an animal could be.

"He waited until it was really bad, then he said if I gave him Ashley, I could walk out of there with you, free and clear," Anita continued. "When I said no, he... he wasn't happy."

After a moment of horrified silence, Jean-Claude crossed the room to Anita. Gently, as if she were made of fine porcelain, the vampire touched her face so she lifted her head. Her eyes were dry, as if she'd been through too much to cry. "Ma petite..."

"But it's okay now," she said fiercely. "We're all together, and we're going home, and we'll figure out what to do when we get home. It's all going to be okay."

Jean-Claude nodded. "If that is what you want, that is what we will do."

"It is." Anita smiled weakly at Jean-Claude, then her haunted gaze slid to Mal. "At least, that was the plan."

Mal watched as the woman's eyes began to fill with a calculating weight. "What do you mean?" he asked, on edge.

"What are you going to do now?" Anita asked bluntly. "I've told you the truth, so now what?"

If she was telling the truth about how badly the authorities wanted to keep everything hushed up, then the smart thing for Mal to do would be to stick them all in the airlock and blow the seal. But then, Mal had never been a smart man. "We're going to land in Gunnerole in a day," Mal said. "Is he going to start attacking people again?"

Anita shook her head firmly, while Jean-Claude turned around, putting his arm around Anita's shoulders. "Being in a box for four years would make the most accommodating of individuals a bit irrational," Jean-Claude said smoothly. "My actions will not be repeated."

Mal glanced down at the wolf again. "You almost killed Richard," Mal said.

Jean-Claude shrugged expressively. "I was not myself. Richard's blood, along with that of Nathaniel, brought me back."

"Huh." Mal couldn't believe he was about to do this, but he didn't seem to have much of a choice. "What about the kid?"

"Jean-Claude's not any threat to Ashley," Anita said immediately. "He's always been fine around my children."

Mal's eyebrows went up at that. "You've got more little ones around?"

The second the words left his mouth, Mal was kicking himself. He should have known better, he thought, as the pain crossed through Anita's eyes. "Richard and I had one," she said shortly. "It was a long time ago."

Mal nodded and let it go. He, too, knew about losing people he loved.

Anita glanced up at the infirmary ceiling. "Nathaniel's coming down with Ashley," she said, even though Mal didn't see how she could have known that. "Can we stay?"

"Yes," Mal said reluctantly. "But you're getting off at Gunnerole, and I'm apt to pretend you were never on board my ship."

"Fine by me," Anita shot back.

The infirmary door slid open, and Nathaniel came through carrying Ashley. The boy took one look at the vampire next to his mother, and tried to scramble out of his father's arms.

Anita rushed over to her son. "Hey, it's okay," she said soothingly. Together with Nathaniel, she calmed the frantic boy. "It's okay now."

"But he hurt Daddy," Ashley protested.

"He wasn't himself," Anita said, lifting Ashley out of Nathaniel's arms. "Remember how sometimes a vampire goes wild?" Ashley nodded, eyes huge. "That's what happened here. But Jean-Claude didn't mean to hurt anyone, and he's okay now."

Ashley frowned, his lower lip stuck out in concentration. "But you were going to shoot him."

"Only because I was worried he might hurt someone," Anita said. She waited while Ashley touched the fang marks on her neck. "But what were you doing, huh? I told you that if bad things happened, you needed to hide. Why did you try and get past Zoe?"

Ashley looked miserable. "I was going to save you," he whispered after a minute.

He wouldn't have saved Anita, Mal knew. If the kid had gotten past Zoe, he probably would have drawn the still-wild vampire's attention. Would Anita's bullets have been able to stop the vampire in time? Or would the vampire have gotten to the boy first?

Anita looked at her son for a long moment. "Oh, my brave boy," she said finally, wrapping the child into a hug.

Mal felt like an intruder on the family scene, and he headed for the door. Nathaniel gave him a long look before moving aside.

"You can't tell them," Anita said as Mal crossed through the doorway.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Mal demanded, turning back.

"Figure it out," Anita retorted. "I told you the risks."

Mal growled low in his throat as he stalked out of the infirmary. River and Simon sat on the floor by Book's room, and they looked up as Mal stormed out. "You two, up to the bridge," Mal demanded.

River bounced up, impatient as Simon climbed to his feet. "What about the Shepard?" Simon asked.

"No need to worry about him," Mal said. He waited until River and a confused-looking Simon went up the stairs before poking his head back into the infirmary. "Ain't no one to be eating on the preacher while we're gone," he said.

Anita opened her mouth to respond, but Mal was already moving away. He was thinking so fast his head hurt. Of all the members of his crew, he could only trust this information to Zoe, but he wondered about the wisdom of that. If by some chance they were caught, it was more than likely they would be tortured or killed for information about River. What if someone determined that Anita and her people had been on board?

There was a possibility that Anita was lying, that Richard hadn't turned into a wolf and the man in the infirmary wasn't a vampire. If so, Mal was only hallucinating, and nothing would be gained by talking about it. If, however, Anita told the truth, then anyone who knew about the passengers might be in danger, and so nothing could be gained by telling his crew about it.

It was a messy solution, and Zoe was not going to be happy with him, this Mal knew.

When he got to the bridge, Jayne rounded on him. "Mal, they're crazy," Jayne declared.

"Watch who you're calling crazy," Zoe said coldly from her place by Wash's chair. The pilot just frowned at his wife's reaction.

"Captain, what's going on?" Kaylee asked.

Mal took a deep breath. "We got us a new passenger," he said. "He's one of Anita's."

"In a box?" Wash asked. "Am I the only one sensing a trend on this ship?"

"Main point is, they'll be off Serenity tomorrow by this time, so we're going to keep on moving on," Mal said.

Inara stepped forward, her dark eyes flashing. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "What about how fast that man moved? What about what he did to Richard?"

"Ain't no way a person can turn into wolf," Jayne said.

"He didn't," Mal said. "Not really."

"Sir?" Zoe said, incredulous.

"Trick of the light," Mal continued.

Of the crew, only Mal himself, Zoe, Inara and River had seen Richard change. River, he could discount as crazy. Zoe, he could order to keep her mouth shut. Inara was the only one he couldn't control.

Surprisingly, however, Inara pressed her lips together and turned away. She would keep quiet, for now, although Mal didn't know why.

"But--" Simon began.

"He was a wolf," River announced, going up on the balls of her feet and forming her hands into claws. "And I'm a cat." She hissed at her brother, before dropping her hands back to her sides.

"Are we in any danger?" Zoe asked. Mal knew he'd get reamed out later by her for this, just not around Jayne.

"No."

"What about the boy?" Zoe pressed.

"Boy's fine," Mal said, hoping that Anita was right about the vampire not being a threat to her son.

Hell, away from the passengers, Mal found himself doubting their story already. It just didn't make any sort of sense. Vampires and werewolves? The government hiding the existence of Earth-that-was? It seemed impossible.

"Wash, when do we land?" Mal said abruptly.

Wash looked at his controls. "Twenty hours," he said. "About an hour after dark."

Mal sighed. "Great." He motioned for Zoe to follow him, but turned back to his crew at the last minute. "Kaylee, River's bunking in with you until we land."

"Sure," Kaylee said, still looking a bit uncertain as to what had just happened.

"Simon can bunk with Jayne," River suggested.

Wash smothered a laugh at the horrified expression on Simon's face. Mal shook his head as he headed down the hall, a fuming Zoe on his heels. She waited until they were down the stairs and in the cargo hold before speaking. "What was--"

"Do you trust me?" Mal interrupted.

That startled Zoe into silence. In the many years that they had fought together, worked together, he had never asked her that question. He had never needed to.

"Yes," Zoe said finally, skirting a pool of drying blood. She helped Mal lift a box down off the barricade.

"I'm asking you to trust me now," he said.

Zoe was silent as they moved the rest of the boxes around, setting the cargo hold back into order. As Mal fetched something to mop up the blood, she finally spoke.

"You staying up on watch tonight?" she asked.

"Yes."

There was a pause. "No Jayne?"

"No."

Zoe shifted a crate around, then stood looking at the broken remains of the black box. Dangling from one part, looking as if it had been built into the box, glinted a tiny silver cross. "I'll sit up with you," she said.

Mal looked at her. He knew that one day, she'd make him tell her what had happened here. But not yet. Not today. "Sounds good."


	6. Chapter 6

River crept along the metal floor on silent feet. Zoe knew she was there, but then, Zoe always knew who was about. She was like River-the-child had been, always seeing, always thinking.

Now, River-the-girl knelt before Captain Mal, who rested his head against the wall in sleep. Everyone was asleep but Wash and Zoe. The Shepherd slept in the empty crew bunk, dreaming of belief. Simon slept there too, his dreams dancing with thoughts of Kaylee and touch and smiles in the twilight.

Jayne slept, dreaming of the things Jayne dreamed about. River didn't like to listen to Jayne's dreams.

Kaylee slept, listening to Serenity's lullaby. She didn't hear as River had crept from the bunk on bare feet, silent feet.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds, the one who kept her on his ship, watched for danger with Zoe. River wanted to tell them there was no danger, but they would not listen. They felt safer sitting in the hallway with guns, while the vampire and the cat and the wolf and the death-maker were below.

Those weren't sleeping. River heard them talking in ghostly whispers in their heads, over the sleeping boy. Their thoughts danced over the edge of space and it hurt to listen, but she wanted to be closer to hear more. She had never touched thoughts like theirs, all jumbled up and together. They lived together, they loved together, they grieved together. They were like her, hearing thoughts not their own. River wanted to know how they heard what they did, and remained who they were.

They thought other things, too, about her. Words hung in the air, hard diamonds in the sky.

River traced the air over Mal's arm. He had been shot there once. The skin had memory too, still felt the slice and burn of the bullet.

"What?" Mal said suddenly, coming awake. Zoe laughed inside, warm and sunny, and it made River smile. "What are you doing?" Mal asked, blinking hard. "Something wrong?"

Mal only ever asked her if she heard bad things when he was half-asleep. "Nothing's wrong," River said, because it was what Mal wanted to hear, and because it was true. "You're supposed to be on watch, soldier."

He sat up, glaring at River. She slunk off to the far side of the corridor to give him space to handle his gun. It always made him feel better, and River knew enough not to get between a man and his gun. "Why aren't you sleeping?" Mal demanded.

"They're going to offer to take me with them," River said. Mal started forward at that, and even Zoe put her gun to the side.

"You..." Mal looked down toward the passenger bunk. "You heard that."

It wasn't even a question. He knew something that made him believe in her, just a little bit more than he had before. She listened to what he was thinking, and shivered inside. Was that why the Alliance wanted to kill her? Because she knew about Earth-that-was and the left-behind monsters?

No, that wasn't it. She hadn't always known that. They couldn't want to kill her for something she hadn't learned yet. They couldn't read minds; that's why they needed her.

"There aren't supposed to be any of me out here," River told him, echoing the words from Anita's head. "She doesn't know how they made me, but they shouldn't have. I am Caesar's, and am thus bound for Rome."

Mal ran his hand down his gun in a caress, the way he did when he was thinking too hard. "Are you going with them?"

The question tasted like bitter tea. "I'm not their kind of apple," River said. The fruit never fell far from the tree, and her orchard was from a different world than Anita. River would never be able to read minds like Erin, or like all of Erin's children. Those apples were everywhere at Anita's home, but they were bright and shiny and whole. River was rotten, would spoil the whole bunch.

And there was no Simon in Rome. River could not leave Simon, when Simon would not leave her.

"Was that a no?" Zoe asked.

"That was a no," Mal said, looking directly at River. He was nervous and tense, and he didn't need to be. Jean-Claude wouldn't go wild again. Blood fountains never ran dry when they had wolves and death-makers to tend to them. "River, why don't you go back to bed?" Mal said.

"Bad people come in sleep," River muttered, but she climbed to her feet anyway. She didn't feel like a cat anymore. She felt like an old sack of bones and blood, too delicate to suffer as she did. Even as she turned from the promise of a world with magic, River wondered if she would ever find a place that was all hers.

~~*~~

After Inara's shuttle separated from Serenity, the Companion heading for her next job, Wash touched Serenity down perfectly in Gunnerole. Night landings were always a little easier than day landings. The wind was usually less, the landing lights were easy to land on.

It had been a long day. Wash wasn't willing to leave the bridge unmanned, after the Reaver scare, and Zoe and Mal sat up all night, waiting for trouble that never came. If anything, the passengers were as polite as could be. If it had only been Inara, Wash would have doubted the crazy story of that had happened the previous day in the hold, but Zoe backed Inara up.

Space made people see crazy things, like men turning into wolves, but Zoe wasn't crazy. It made Wash wonder what Mal was trying to cover up, when he denied their story.

After he flicked the last switches on the control panel, Wash reached up for the intercom. "We're good to go," he said.

There was a burst of static, then Mal said, "Sure thing."

"I don't get any respect," Wash muttered mockingly to himself. He made sure the landing gear was set, then hopped up. He needed a breath of air in the world.

By the time Wash got to the cargo hold, everyone was already assembled. The passengers seemed ready to depart, standing over their duffle and the remains of the black box, packed carefully into a mesh bag. The box man didn't look nearly as disreputable as he had the previous day. His hair was combed, and even though the clothes he wore looked to be Richard's and ill-fitting, he wore them with class. Now, Jean-Claude spoke to Richard in a murmur. They stood together easily, making Wash wonder. Oh well. Kaylee would probably get enough out of watching this for a month of gossip.

Anita glanced up as Wash came down the stairs. Her son sat on the duffle, looking as bored as only a five-year-old could be. Wash hoped that Zoe's worries that the child would be traumatized wouldn't come to bear.

Speaking of his wife, she leaned against the mule, stoic and annoyed, but she looked so good. She always looked good to Wash. Why she'd fallen in love with a guy like him, he would never figure out.

"We're on the ground," Wash murmured in her ear as he sidled up to her.

"Mmm hmm."

Mal strode past them, yelling for Jayne. Zoe didn't even turn her head. "How's Book doing?" Wash asked Zoe, trying to get a response.

It worked. "Doctor said he'd be up and around by the morning," Zoe said. "He's had some previous concussions, so the damage was a bit worse than Simon first thought."

"More concussions?" Wash repeated. "See? Being a man of God really is hazardous to your health."

Zoe's lips twitched just a little, but it made Wash feel infinitely better. He could always get her to laugh.

"So what do you think Book will say when he wakes up and hears all he missed?" Wash asked.

"He'll probably have some sort of homily about the evils of gossip," Zoe said.

"Yeah, to hide how annoyed he is at having missed the action," Wash retorted.

"He is only human, dear," Zoe said absently as the ramp began to open.

Across the hold, Anita picked up the mesh bag and slung it over her shoulder, while Richard took the duffle, dumping Ashley to his feet.

Wash watched Zoe as she looked at the protesting boy. He knew how worried she was about the child. Every conversation they'd had in the last few days about the passengers always wrapped back around to Ashley.

The fact that Zoe wanted a baby, now, was the only real point of contention between them. Wash wanted a baby with Zoe too, just not now. They barely made enough money to feed themselves, and the dangers of living in open space... there wasn't a place in their lives for a baby. But one day, Wash knew, it would be time. One day, he'd hold that little baby that was part him and part Zoe and all new.

Anita turned around as Mal approached the passengers. "Well," he said. "This is it."

"Yes, it is," Anita said. She hesitated, then continued, "Look, about River--"

"She's staying with us." Mal said flatly.

"Oh." Anita looked around at Richard, then back to Mal. "That's that, then."

"Mightily is." Mal glanced out of the open ramp into the dark night. "You folks set to be getting to Black Canyon safe?"

"It's only a few miles," Anita said. "We'll be fine."

"And then from there... back to home?"

Wash frowned. Mal was being chatty. Mal was never chatty. "What's he doing?" Wash whispered in Zoe's ear.

"Don't know," Zoe replied.

"Yeah, to home," Anita was saying. "But there's one thing I wanted to give you."

She went to Richard, and he put the duffle bag down. Anita rummaged in a side pocket and pulled out a small drawstring sack. She carried it over to Mal and tried to give it to him. Mal looked down at it, but wouldn't put out his hands. "You paid your fare, we got you here like we said we would," Mal said.

"This isn't money," Anita said, a faint hint of colour in her pale cheeks. "It's a small thank you, for all you've done for me. For us."

After a long moment, Mal took the sack, about the size of two fists, and nodded at Anita. "We're all just trying to get things done," he said.

Anita nodded. Just then, Ashley darted to the duffle, unzipped another pocket, and dug something out of the bag. Then the child ran across the hold and He held out his prize, a small tattered book, to Zoe. "This is for you," the child announced.

Zoe knelt down so she was on eye-level with Ashley. "What's this?"

"It's my Narnia book," Ashley explained earnestly. "It's so that you won't forget me."

Zoe took the small book carefully. "I won't forget you," she said. "But won't you miss your book?"

"I know the story," Ashley said, suddenly looking bashful. Nathaniel walked up behind him and lifted the child up.

"Is he sure?" Zoe asked Nathaniel as she stood, holding the gift.

Nathaniel nodded. "I didn't know he planned it, but it's his book." He looked fondly at the boy. "And thank you," Nathaniel said to Zoe. "Yesterday. You saved my son."

Zoe shook her head. "Anyone would have done it."

Nathaniel smiled wryly. "No, they wouldn't have. You kept my boy safe for me."

Zoe shifted the book to her other hand, and reached out to touch Ashley's cheek. "You take care, you hear?" she said to Ashley.

Ashley nodded solemnly, continuing to watch Zoe as his father smiled one last time before walking away.

Kaylee and River and Simon stood on the lower catwalk as the passengers, now numbering five, walked down the ramp. Anita turned around one last time and nodded at Mal, before they vanished into the dark of night.

The ship was silent for a moment before Mal cleared his throat. "Come on, folks, we got a job needs being done," he said.

"What's in the bag?" Wash asked as Mal strode to the mule.

"Good question," Mal said. He undid the drawstring and peered into the bag. He frowned, then reached into the bag and pulled out what looked like a small greyish-green bean. "Magical beans?"

Simon swore in Chinese, clattering down the stairs. He took the bean from Mal and sniffed at it. "This is coffee," the doctor said, awed. "Real coffee!"

Mal's jaw dropped. Looking back into the bag, he said weakly, "There has to be more than a pound in here."

"What's coffee?" Kaylee asked, trailing down the stairs.

"It's an old plant that used to grow in abundance on Earth-that-was," Simon said. "The first colonists to the Core planets brought some, but it was almost all wiped out by a fungus. Right now, it only grows in greenhouses in Ariel. It's one of the most expensive drinks in the galaxy. You could sell this ship and everyone on it, and still only be able to buy a handful of beans."

"And she gave us a whole pound," Mal said, sounding a little stunned.

"Can we sell it?" Wash asked. Visions of cold hard cash danced in his head.

"No, we can't," Simon said. "If we try and sell this, the Coffee Guild will be on us in a week, they've got the market locked down as tight as anything you'll ever see."

"Anita gave this to us," Mal said. He took the bean back from Simon, placed it back in the bag, and did up the drawstring. "As a thank-you." He shook his head. "All right, we'll consider the implications of this at a later time. Right now, we've got work to do."

"So we just do the job?" Zoe asked, her fingers tightening around Ashley's book.

"We always do the job," Mal said, stowing the coffee bag into a pocket of his jacket and looking around at his crew. "It's what we do. Sometimes we meet people, but they always got their own business to keep. As for us... well, we need to keep going forward."

_\--fin_


End file.
